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NMDP Cryopreservation Service

Providing physicians, patients and donors a predictable path to transplant

Many obstacles can stand in the way of achieving your patient’s desired transplant timeline. Uncertainty that a donor’s collection can happen when you need it. Financial risks if issues arise with a patient’s insurance. Scheduling conflicts if your patient’s transplant needs to be postponed.

You’ve told us you need more certainty that donor collection and cell delivery will happen when you need it. That’s why we established our NMDP cryopreservation service.

Our cryopreservation service reduces the risk that those obstacles will put your patient’s treatment timeline in jeopardy. When you use our cryopreservation service, you can have confidence that you’ll receive the product you requested when your patient is ready for transplant.

Explore the service below. Then, request our cryopreservation service for your patient through your case manager. Or contact the cryopreservation service team at cryoservice@nmdp.org.

Benefits for patients, transplant centers and donors

Through our cryopreservation service, our goal is to:

  • Increase donor availability by giving donors, donor centers or registries, apheresis centers and collection centers more flexibility in scheduling the donation date
  • Secure a high-quality graft source
  • Offer transplant center physicians a reliable transplant experience with little financial risk

Navigating treatment timelines

Our cryopreservation service allows the donor’s collection to proceed before your patient’s transplant. The donor’s cells are cryopreserved and stored at one of our partner facilities until you request the product for shipment. That means a high-quality and characterized product is available when needed for your patient.

If your patient’s health status changes and they are unable to proceed to transplant, the donor product can be listed in MatchSource® and made available for other searching patients if the donor consents.

Offering more flexibility in the scheduling of collection

When you choose to cryopreserve the donor product for your patient’s hematopoietic cell transplant, you allow for more flexibility in scheduling the donor’s donation. Offering this flexibility can increase the likelihood a product is available for transplant because donation can happen on a date that works best for the donor.

This allows the donation to occur even if the transplant is delayed. It is an added benefit for the donor, donor center or registry, and apheresis or marrow collection center because they avoid scheduling changes that often occur when a fresh product is requested for a patient.

Cryopreservation through our service allows for more flexibility in the donor collection, the product delivery and, ultimately, your patient’s transplant.

Reducing financial risk

There is little financial risk to your center to use our cryopreservation service. Unless noted on the fee schedule and/or notified otherwise prior to product collection, you will not be charged for donor workup, product procurement (collection and courier), or cryopreservation processing, storage, and shipment until after the cryopreserved product has shipped from our partner facility to your center.

In the unlikely event your patient cannot proceed to transplant after product collection, your center will not be responsible for donor workup, collection, courier, cryopreservation, storage, and shipment costs except in rare cases.

We’re reducing your financial risk because we know how critically important it is to meet your transplant timeline.

To request cryopreservation through our service, contact your case manager or email cryoservice@nmdp.org.

How the NMDP cryopreservation service works

The process starts after you’ve selected a donor for workup. If a cryopreserved product is best for your patient, simply provide the patient’s anticipated conditioning start date and transplant date to your case manager.

Your case manager will work with the donor center or registry to confirm collection and that cryopreservation through our service is an option. If so, the donor will proceed with their donation when it works best for them and the apheresis center or marrow collection center.

After collection, an NMDP courier will take the fresh product to one of our partner facilities for cryopreservation, product characterization and storage. You will receive the product cell counts and characterization results as they become available. A final product comprehensive report will be emailed to your center upon completion of all testing.

The product will be held in storage until it is shipped to your center. Our NMDP Logistics team will arrange product shipment to ensure the donor cells arrive at your center on time.

Our partner cryopreservation labs

We partnered with three labs to provide our cryopreservation service:

  • Marcus Center for Cellular Cures (MC3)/Carolinas Cord Blood Bank at Duke University
  • Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics Program, M Health Fairview at the University of Minnesota
  • Vitalant Cellular Therapy Laboratory (Tempe, Ariz.)
  • Comprehensive Cell Solutions, part of the New York Blood Center Enterprise

All programs have vast experience and expertise in cryopreserving hematopoietic stem cells for patient transplant.

If you have questions about the cryopreservation process, such as processing or product characterization, email our cryopreservation service team at cryoservice@nmdp.org. Contact your case manager to request cryopreservation through our service.

Request the NMDP cryopreservation service

To request our cryopreservation service, contact your case manager or email cryoservice@nmdp.org.