BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    




                   Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
                           Senator Tom Torlakson, Chairman

                                           962 (Migden)
          
          Hearing Date:  5/14/07          Amended: 5/1/07
          Consultant:  John Miller        Policy Vote: Health 6 - 3
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          BILL SUMMARY: SB 962 requires the Department of Public Health to  
          establish a state umbilical cord blood banking program that  
          provides for the collection, processing and storage of umbilical  
          cord blood stem cells to be used for transplant and research  
          purposes.
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          ____
                            Fiscal Impact (in thousands)

           Major Provisions         2007-08      2008-09       2009-10     Fund
           Collection/storage     $ 200      $ 1,000     $ 1,000   GF
          DHS administration     $ 200      $    600    $    600  GF/Sp
          Fee revenue                       Undetermined              Sp*

          *Umbilical Cord Blood Biomedical Resources Program Fund 
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          ____

          STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to  
          Suspense.

          This bill would require the Department of Public Health to  
          create a system to collect, process and store umbilical cord  
          blood stem cells to be used for transplantation and research.  
          The bill would require the department to establish a repository  
          for umbilical cord blood cells to ensure cord blood is collected  
          and stored per the patient's wishes, establish a system to  
          retrieve and transport umbilical blood donations, and establish  
          a system for matching umbilical cord donors with recipients for  
          therapeutic use. The bill requires the department to provide  
          information on umbilical cord donation to pregnant women with  
          information on prenatal testing, and authorizes the department  
          to establish fees to be collected from researchers and health  
          providers. It is the intent of the author to integrate the  
          umbilical cord blood collection service within the existing  
          structure of the prenatal testing system.











          SB 962 would establish a statewide system for the collection,  
          storage, and distribution of cord blood to be financed as far as  
          possible with revenue from research and medical services. Costs  
          of such a program depend on the volume of donations and the  
          market demand for cord blood products and data, both of which  
          are difficult to predict. Federal efforts to establish similar  
          cord blood centers and related legislation (AB 34, Portantino)  
          indicate initial costs in a range of $2 to 3 million. The  
          Committee anticipated that there would be higher start up costs  
          and limited non-GF revenue in the first year, but that costs  
          would diminish in the future and revenue increase. The  
          Committee's estimate also presumed the department could contract  
          for the infrastructure and distribution system. No estimate by  
          the department was available at the time of this analysis.