Launch HN: Anja Health (YC W22) – Freezing stem cells at birth for future health (anjahealth.com)
“Anja” refers to my brother Andrew. When I was 3 and Andrew was 1, he was in a near-drowning accident that gave him cerebral palsy. My parents immediately began searching for a way to help his condition, and the most promising thing they could find was umbilical cord blood stem cells, which have been shown to improve motor and social skills in children with cerebral palsy. However, we couldn't find a match because matching happens via ethnicity (at a high level), and my brother and I are mixed race. So, lack of access to cord blood stem cells is a pain point that my family knows deeply, and I felt it the most this past year when my brother passed away. I knew I had to solve this issue for others.
I want everyone to have access to their own umbilical cord blood stem cells, especially since more powerful uses will likely be found for these cells in the future. Also, since banked cells can be used by relatives (the closer the better), this process is really for families, not just individuals. Donated cord blood can save a life, but chances of survival have proven to be much higher with stem cells that you are genetically matched to.
Cord blood stem cells have been used for heart disease, liver disease, cancer, IBS, type 1 diabetes, neurological disease, and more. Selma Blair, for instance, has even used them to help her multiple sclerosis. They’ve also been used to help children with neuroblastomas, lymphomas, and leukemia specifically.
We are one of the few cord blood banks with an advanced lab—advanced enough to offer placenta banking and manual stem cell processing, which maximizes stem cell count and collection at birth.
How it works: we ship our stem cell collection kit to you. You keep it in your bag to bring to the birth, and a nurse or midwife uses the kit (a cord blood bag with a needle and 2 containers for the placenta and cord) to collect. This takes 5-10 minutes. (Delayed cord clamping and cord blood banking are compatible—you can delay cord clamping and bank the rest.) You call us a few hours after birth, and a courier will meet you anywhere in the US within 12 hours to bring the kit to our lab in New Jersey, where it's cryopreserved at around -190 degrees C in vapor nitrogen. You will then have stem cells for injury, disease, and other treatment purposes that you can always access upon request.
We are more user friendly and more technically inclined than other solutions. Lower costs and tech operations allow us to be the most affordable option. For as low as $35/month, parents can store their baby’s once-in-a-lifetime stem cells (our price plans are here: https://anjahealth.com/shop/#pricing). While we realize that our price points are still an investment, we are currently the most affordable and we think it’s worth it because it could potentially save a life. Our hope is to bring costs down over time, so more people can access this potentially life-saving process.
Cord blood banking is a surprisingly little-known option for birth, so a big part of our effort is in education and outreach. Most umbilical cords and placentas are thrown away. (Side note: plancentas are so valuable that physicians - especially in Europe - sometimes prefer to take them for themselves to sell to cosmetics research for ~$50k.)
We have a medical advisory board with 2 OB/GYNs (Dr. Jay Chang and Dr. Allison Rodgers). Our lab has over 40 years of experience in the blood processing space, and our lab director is a former AABB accreditor. Our lab is AABB accredited and FDA approved.
To conclude, if you had a baby recently and banked cord blood, I’d...
159 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 248 ms ] threadI am a mix of White, Chinese, and Caribbean Black, so this alarms me, as I seriously doubt that there are many people with my particular makeup out there.
A long way from having kids, but at least for me, this made the value proposition for this a lot more relevant for if/when I do.
In the US, only about 2% of parents bank cord blood due to a huge awareness issue (that 2% is concentrated in wealthy, urban areas - think Greenwich, Beverly Hills, Upper East Side). In Singapore, however, rates can be as high as 30%, and in certain areas of China it's at around 10%. The greatest barrier in the US is for sure awareness and secondarily pricing, so we're working on trying to lower costs. When you first read this post, what was your first reaction? What are you most curious about?
I was not convinced on the science today, but when it is cheap I figured that it is worth a punt on the assumption that science will improve in the next two decades. If not you've only spent about as much as a new Mac book Pro (from most providers) so worth the gamble.
I saw your pricing and was a bit shocked that it's 3x what I pay on an annualized basis. However, my rate seems to have been grandfathered in - the other service has also updated their pricing to match yours.
1. Is there anything particularly different from the competition that you offer?
2. Is there a reason for such a steep price increase? (While I understand the monthly payments, a 3x multiple over 16 years seems pretty steep. You, like the service we used, offer ~20 year storage commitment. Should I be preparing to pay 10 times as much if we want to preserve it for the 20-40 year age span?)
In Canada from my understanding is people can store these tissue products but they're not approved for any use yet.
How is Anja Health different from other established US providers such as Cord Blood Registry, Via-Cord, or Cryo-Cell?
Also, if our family already has a sample frozen at one of these other facilities, and assuming there's a compelling reason to switch, do you have a tissue sample transfer mechanism/protocol?
>>If you didn’t, what prevented you from doing so?
Didn't for our first child because we weren't aware (education/awareness issue), but we did it for the second child. It feels like a tail risk hedge, and literally YOLO-type analysis is what motivates us to continue paying for the sample to stay frozen.
So glad you did it for your second! Siblings can be a 75% match, so that's awesome. Love the term YOLO-type analysis haha
But it's getting pretty clear that the only innovation here is to target lower income families than your competitors, by using platforms like tiktok and charging a low upfront fee (but higher monthly fee).
No need, I believe you. It's just that it seemed others here pay less than that.
But it's a bit confusing that you only pay for the first 8 years. That makes it look more expensive than it is. Why not lower the monthly fee to $20 but keep it for the full 20 years?
Why would a young not so well off family prefer to pay 35 dollars a month for eight years, to paying say 20 for 20 years?
I'm really confused by this because it seems that it would benefit both your customers, and you, since you could charge more overall while imposing a smaller burden. Plus it would sound cheaper.
2173 followers (personal account): https://www.tiktok.com/@kathrynjc7
699 followers: https://www.tiktok.com/@anjahealth
10 followers: https://www.tiktok.com/@anja_health
Highlights include real cases of cord blood being used to reverse type 1 diabetes (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/240160#1), significantly improve symptoms of Chron's (https://www.dvcstem.com/post/stem-cell-crohns-case-study), promote CAR-T cell therapy (https://www.cancertherapyadvisor.com/home/cancer-topics/hema...), treating neuroblastoma on a 7-year-old (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1357627/), and more!
We're different because 1. pricing - we offer monthly payments (we have offered annual upon request). When you add up all banks' costs to cover 20 years, we are the cheapest option. 2. We process stem cells manually (by hand), which can yield up to 25% more stem cells than if they are processed with a machine/automatically. Our brand is built around evidence-based personalization. 3. We offer placenta banking, which requires a more advanced lab that we have access to. 4. We have a brand and community behind us. Many parents tell us that they choose us over other banks because we have such personal customer service where everyone feels educated walking into the process of banking and they feel comfort walking out of the process of banking.
As to brand, how does that help?
What kind of personalisation do you offer?
As a brand, it helps because people of color can be most affected by being unable to find a stem cell match. And people of color - on average - have lower income in the US, so having lower prices makes us more accessible.
Personalization happens technically with manual processing. It also happens emotionally because we cater to every single customer to make sure that they feel supported regardless of what their birth plan/unforeseen circumstances are
"Private cord blood banking can be expensive. Depending on the bank, current promotions and whether you're storing cord blood, cord tissue or both, initial processing fees can run from roughly $500 to $2,500, with annual storage fees of $100 to $300 each year thereafter." https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/cord-blood-banking...
I can guarantee we are the most affordable in the industry at this moment.
So personalisation doesn't mean that the harvesting or storing is personalised? It just means you are emotionally supportive? Aren't your competitors supportive?
Relevant to people of color because people like me - who are mixed race - will have a harder time finding a donor if they ever need stem cells. So banking their own ensures access
To spell this one out: Branding resonates with different groups of people. If the only brands that are in this space are ones that speak to non-people of color, by definition, the people of color wont see it, and by consequence, they wont have access to the treatments.
This applies to all things. Replace "people of color" with whatever you want. It's why there are "investment app for Gen Z" because the Merrill-Lynch doesn't reach anyone under 50. This is not rocket science, dude.
I definitely don't have any investments in this space, I find it distasteful.
It just goes to show that being knowledgeable about technology doesn’t mean that you don’t have other significant blind spots.
As for cord blood banking, anyone who can get a kit (which should be everyone because we ship nationally) should be able to bank, but in the rare cases that doctors push back, you can request that they put in your medical record that they are refusing, and usually they will reconsider because - inversely -they don't want to take on the liability of not banking haha
Most notably, I like to point out that banking over donating is what we advocate for because using a donor's hematopoietic stem cells risks rejection and even fatality, so using a genetically related (or your own) stem cells increases your chances of survival (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199708073370602)
As a startup, we have a legal obligation to ensure that the CRM is handed off in case anything happens to the company. Our lab has been around for over 40 years processing different kinds of blood products, so they are definitely not going anywhere (and the blood products our clients stored wouldn't either), and they would simply communicate with a new CRM.
Again, it's an exciting field with a lot of really good outcomes, but it kind of plays into the whole, "what if something happens to your kid fear" to sell it to people, instead of thinking about all the other kids that you could be saving.
Plus, standards for donations are very high. Some donations are rejected, so if you try to donate and it's rejected, then nobody wins :(
As for the fear mongering-related marketing, we do our very best to stay away from that, but truthfully it's a necessary thought when it comes to positioning a preventative care product.
I have considered this in the past, but had a some questions on the investment (and typically high recurring cost):
1. How many years will cord blood usable when frozen?
2. Do you think ongoing research like the way Harvard researchers found ways to reprogram skin cells to stem cells [1], if eventually commercialized, would be a headwind for your business?
[1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/10/converting-sk...
By the way, the first sentence is "Get your personalized cord blood plan in minutes." but it seems from the other thread that there is no personalisation, every plan is the same?
Has there been any research on producing stem cells from specialized cells? Or is there something fundamentally impossible about this, akin to producing the original content given only a hash value?
Unsurprisingly, lots.
People have been researching this for a long time, with some famous success stories, eg.
https://dolly.roslin.ed.ac.uk/facts/the-life-of-dolly
The article kind of alludes poorly to this, but somatic cell nuclear transfer (developed by John Durdon) was a huge milestone in the field that eventually led to Yamanaka's discovery of the pluripotency factors, for which they both won the Nobel prize in 2012.
I recall when Dolly was in the news, but only understood the broad strokes of the process. I did scan through that page for 'stem', and found a reference to future research, and noted the replication from an 'adult cell' (which I'd assume analogous to differentiated cell).
I'd guess the transfer process is why she arrived with shorter telomeres at birth?
That's correct.
> I'd guess the transfer process is why she arrived with shorter telomeres at birth?
Also spot on. The donor somatic cell likely had shortened telomeres, resulting in shorter length in the embryo. It's kind of an interesting research question, because telomere length gets "restored" for germ cells (otherwise every time an organism produced sperm/eggs the telomeres would shorten), and these types of experiments demonstrate that there is a limit to that restorative process.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinya_Yamanaka [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16904174/
Even though nobody is quite sure how it works, it's possible to reverse the epigenetics of a cell back to its original differentiated state and even back to stem cell form not entirely unlike rolling back git commits.
We had our baby two weeks ago (a mixed race kid as well) -- luckily we managed to find a service here in Australia and get his cord blood stored at the last minute. I didn't know this is a thing and could be vital for my kid's future health. My in-laws work in the medical industry and they were the ones who suggested us to do it. I was curious why isn't this suggested or recommended by OB/GYNs during pregnancy? Are there still any medical restrictions for using of cord blood?
Also, is 20 years the maximum effective storage period for it? Is it possible to transfer it between countries in case we decide to migrate in the future?
No evidence to show that extensive storage will damage the product! Potentially re: transfer, although it would depend on who is transferring & how
We got something similar from a private company here in London - umbilical cord, blood, placenta - and the storage fee is £100 per year.l (there was an initial "set up" fee of approx £2,000 too). 85USD a month for storage seems like a lot for the same thing.
We figured that we'd spend perhaps £3,800 all-in to "insure" our kid until they're an adult which seemed like a great deal. 18k USD just for storage seems like less of a clear-cut value proposition.
Our's is $35, 65, or 85/mo for 8 years to cover 20 years of storage. So it's nowhere near 18k
We are paying £100 a year for as long as we want to keep it.
I had no idea this was a thing when my son was born. I trusted the doctors and staff of my medical HMO (Kaiser) to tell us what steps to take at each point in the process.
I don't think donation was ever raised as a possibility; given that we never signed a consent for that, I assume it was all just disposed of.
Btw. we deposited stem cells for our second child born in 2010, and when this scandal happened I tried not to think too much about it and just be grateful that we don't need that material. It should be still safe in that other bank though.
Cellino is looking to automate the process we use to create human cells, most specifically, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). IPSCs are made from other cell types, like blood cells, then transformed back into stem cells, which can eventually differentiate into many different cell types.
Also as ohter say there are public banks for these in many european countries and the cost is ~ $1000 (but they are not available for everyone). There is also a perception that these companies are selling a service that won't be needed - just feeding off the hopes/fears of young parents.
Survival rates from stem cell treatments are also much higher if the stem cells come from a genetically related sample - the best is your own. Beyond that, many may not find a match if you're a person of color or mixed race. This is also a pain point my family personally faced
Some cases where babies use them themselves: https://www.nature.com/articles/bmt2012146
https://pediatrics.duke.edu/news/umbilical-cord-blood-improv...
Are you hiring?
There's a free documentary on the clinic that can be watched that explains why they believe it's safe to inject fetal stem cells that are 7-12 weeks old into anyone; there are 50 million legal abortions done annually around the world, and that tissue is otherwise thrown out and considered bio-waste.
There are a number of diseases that aren't curable in North America, however based on their data/experience that it appears that if treated early enough before disease progression damages the healing mechanisms of the body, that different diseases can be not only stopped but also regress (heal/be cured).
Curious if you have any thoughts and of course, good luck with your company!
- Who owns the stem cells/blood?
- Can I move them to a different bank in the future if I choose to?
I thought the pricing was a monthly subscription. In that case I would want to be able to transfer to a similar, but more affordable option in the future if that becomes available.
Also 23andMe was purchased by an advertising company, so there is some precedent to be concerned with.
> All biological goods stored with Anja will stay in our New Jersey lab regardless of what happens to Anja as a business.
Can you explain this more? How is this guaranteed in the contract?
We have an insurance guarantee :)
What does this mean?