Under-fire Cordlife suspends trading over impending announcement
File photo of a Cordlife counter at Parkway East Hospital.
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SINGAPORE: Private blood bank Cordlife has requested a suspension in the trading of its shares on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX), amid investigations into the company’s mishandling of cord blood units.
In a filing on SGX on Monday (Apr 1) morning, Cordlife requested a trading halt pending the release of an announcement.
Cordlife shares last closed at S$0.1720. The stock has fallen by more than 60 per cent since it emerged last November that seven of its storage tanks had been exposed to temperatures above acceptable limits, damaging cord blood units belonging to at least 2,150 clients. Another 17,000 clients could possibly be affected.
In recent weeks, Cordlife’s former group CEO Tan Poh Lan, chief financial officer Thet Hnin Yi and four board members have been arrested in connection with the company’s mishandling of blood cord units.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) had received a complaint from a member of the public on Jul 24, 2023, about alleged issues with a storage tank. It later emerged that Cordlife's board had known of the issue months earlier, in February 2023.
Following the arrest of its former group CEO, Cordlife’s recently appointed chief executive Ivan Yiu Pang Fai told shareholders that the company would implement strict measures to enhance its operation standards.
Cordlife is currently under a six-month suspension given by MOH, which was meted out in December 2023.
The company is required to rectify a list of potential non-compliances by May 31. These include ineffective incident reporting frameworks, inadequate training and competence of staff, and the inappropriate storage of cord blood units, among others.
Its cellular therapy accreditation has been indefinitely suspended by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy, a global non-profit corporation which conducts inspections and accreditation in cellular therapy.
