Olympic Medalist Endorses Cord Blood Bank

PRNewsWire.com, August 24, 2009

Shannon Miller, a 7-time Olympic Medalist and 9-time World Medalist, has signed a formal endorsement with StemCyte, one of the leading cord blood banks in the world. According to the terms of the agreement, Ms. Miller will be featured in a series of public awareness and advertising campaigns for the company.

In addition to her accomplishments as an Olympic gymnast, Ms. Miller is also a lawyer, having graduated in 2007 from Boston College Law School. She and her husband, John Falconetti, are expecting their first child in November of this year.

According to Ms. Miller, "As a former Olympic gold medalist, I've always sought out the best and healthiest decisions in life. As my husband and I have begun planning our family's future, we have been thoroughly investigating the finest decisions for our baby. Cord blood banking was a no-brainer for us, and StemCyte was the obvious choice for where we wanted to store our baby's cord blood."

In a statement made by Calvin Cole, vice president of operations in North America for StemCyte, "We were thrilled when Shannon approached StemCyte. We felt that as a world class athlete, expecting mom and role model for millions around the world, she was a perfect fit for StemCyte. As a decorated athlete who knows what it takes to be the best in the world, we're thrilled that she clearly recognized StemCyte as the world's best choice for parents and their cord blood banking decisions."

Headquartered in California and New Jersey, StemCyte also has facilities in India and Taiwan. As stated in their press release, StemCyte has supplied over 1,000 cord blood products for over 40 life-threatening diseases to over 200 leading worldwide transplant centers. StemCyte is also involved in the development of new umbilical cord-blood-based therapies, and is supporting the largest clinical study for the use of unrelated cord blood transplantation in the treatment of thalassemia, one of the most common genetic diseases in the world. Additionally, StemCyte is also supporting trials investigating regenerative spinal cord therapies. StemCyte has been contracted by the U.S. Department of HHS (Health and Human Services) to help establish a public National Cord Blood Inventory for unrelated transplant units.