SINGAPORE: Singapore has asked one of Asia's largest stem cell bank providers to tighten supervision of its processes after improper handling ruined thousands of samples, an official said Wednesday.

Authorities have said Cordlife Group failed to properly store blood taken from the umbilical cord from babies, sparking the fury of thousands of parents.

The blood contained stem cells which could be used to treat blood diseases and some cancers such as leukaemia and lymphoma.

Singapore's health ministry urged the company to "revalidate its processing method for cord blood units and enhance staff training and supervision of its operations more closely", Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State for Health, told parliament.

Authorities previously found that 7,500 cord blood units were unusable for transplants because they were exposed to temperatures outside the acceptable limits of below minus 150 degrees centigrade.

Cordlife filed a police report in April blaming former staff for "potential wrongdoing."

The company said in a statement on Tuesday that it was boosting laboratory and technical manpower to prevent future disruptions, among other measures.

"I sincerely apologise to all our clients and empathise with their disappointment and concerns over these lapses. We are diligently working on ways to minimise the impact on our clients," Cordlife CEO Ivan Yiu said.

Storing cord blood is a private service that emerged over the past 20 years and is offered to parents when their babies are born, according to the Singapore health ministry.

US-based based Global Market Insights said the global cord blood banking market size is projected to grow to US$20 billion by 2027 from US$14.21 billion in 2020.

 -AFP