Upfront

Lifecell plans for an IPO by July 2008

Lifecell, a joint venture between Asia Cryo Cell Pvt Ltd and Florida-based Cryo-Cell International (CCI), is planning for an initial public offering (IPO) within the next six months to expand its operations in the areas of stem cell therapy research and cord blood banking. With this IPO, Asia Cryo Cell, which runs the network of cord blood banking in India with the brand name Lifecell, expects to raise Rs 60-70 crore.

Sharing his vision on the company's latest move, S Abhaya Kumar, VP, Asia Cryo Cell, said, "We will justify to our shareholders by choosing the IPO route, instead of private equity. We have already matured to the level where our investors will be confident about the whole concept which the Company has put forth." The expansion plans will include opening up of marketing offices at key destinations, increasing the present capacity of private cord blood banking from 22 to 60 by the end of 2009, increasing the number of clinical research and trial centers from one to four in major cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Nagpur, pumping up the R&D by bringing in new services and opening up international centres. "We have covered almost 85 per cent of our targeted work of being an integrated player and by mid next year we will be there," Kumar added. The Company is also planning to expand its wings overseas with special emphasis on markets like Malaysia, Singapore and Dubai, where it already has marketing offices and now plans to open stem cell processing centers in the coming years. The clinical research and trial centers coming up in India will have a core focus on peripheral vascular diseases. "We have already submitted the protocol for cardiac therapies and plan to submit proposal for spinal cord and diabetes," said Kumar.

The Company is also escalating its storage capacity of cord blood from the present 20,000 units to one lakh units.

Sonal Shukla