Parents may soon be able to utilise a Virgin bank to store stem cells from their child's umbilical cord.
Entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson announced the new venture, which will allow parents to store the blood from the child's cord for a £1,500 fee. It is believed that stem cells could be used in the future to help cure diseases of the nervous system, such as Parkinson's.
The enterprise also has a charitable side. Sir Richard has announced that half of the blood collected from the umbilical cords for storage will go to the national blood centre, increasing the chances of a patient being able to find a stem cell match.
"This is a unique initiative that will help address the global shortage of matched stem cells available to patients who need life-saving treatments," a Virgin spokesperson said.
"The initiative will also help drive further research into regenerative medicine and treatments with stem cells."
The process of storing stem cells for later use has become popular in the US and Virgin is hoping to cash in on a similar boom in popularity in the UK.
Virgin is not the first company to offer the service in the UK. Future Health is one company that already offers the service.
For £1,250 the company will transport the blood to their laboratory and process the blood for cold storage. Parents are then charged a £35-per-year storage fee.
Digg 
Delicious 
Reddit 
StumbleUpon 
Google 
Technorati 
Netvouz