Smart Cells' facilities and accreditations

Smart Cells are licensed by the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) and have been granted HTA licence number 22522 for procurement, testing, import and export, processing and storage of cord blood stem cells. 

Our UK facilities exceed the highest standards of safety and cleanliness. Our laboratory:

• is fully licensed and holds an HTA licence
• is located close to London Heathrow airport - maximising transportation times for customers around the world
• is a state of the art facility built with the latest design and materials
• uses the industry standard system for cord blood processing also widely used in public banking - the Biosafe Sepax system
• has an advanced Facilities Management System to continually monitor the environment; is fully alarmed and has an uninterruptible power supply in case of a mains electricity failure

All processing procedures are undertaken in a sterile, controlled environment by specially trained staff.  We only use our laboratories for processing, including directly associated tests and storage of cord blood stem cells. 

Initially, cord blood was stored using the same processes for storing peripheral blood. However, cord blood is fundamentally different from peripheral blood and should be processed and stored appropriately. There are a number of steps for processing cord blood, which include; testing the blood, cell counting and processing by red cell depletion or plasma depletion (to reduce the volume)"

Abstract from Technopolis report produced for the Department of Health

Our strict criteria for processing and assessing cord blood units ensures that a successful unit will have a high likelihood to be used for your family if someone was to suffer from a disease or illness defined appropriate for a stem cell transplant. 

Two of our customers have successfully retrieved and used their child's cord blood stem cells to help treat another ill child in their family.