STEM CELLS AND VIRGIN HEALTH BANK

That this House welcomes the launch of Virgin Health Bank; applauds this initiative for providing a public bank of stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood whilst also allowing parents to pay for privately storing umbilical cord blood stem cells for future use by their own child; welcomes that this innovative stem cell bank will use private banking to facilitate the public resource of stem cells; applauds that this public resource will be available free at the point of access and available to treat patients with a genuine requirement; further welcomes that, should further uses be discovered for stem cells, this facility will allow those benefits to be realised; and welcomes that Virgin will be reinvesting all proceeds from Virgin Health Bank to help realise these benefits.