Boyband star Harry Judd turns to Sussex firm to help protect his baby daughter

Boyband star Harry Judd has turned to a Mid Sussex firm to help him protect his baby daughter from future illness.
McFly star Harry JuddMcFly star Harry Judd
McFly star Harry Judd

The star, drummer with the band McFly, has revealed he has stored his four-month-old daughter’s umbilical cord with the Burgess Hill company Cells4Life.

The firm has developed a revolutionary way of storing stem cells collected from blood in babies’ umbilical cords - which are usually thrown away after birth.

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The cells are frozen and, when thawed, can be used in a range of life-saving medical treatments including cancer, transplants, injuries and regenerative therapies.

Cells4Life says its new technology - known as TotiCyte - improves the freezing and thawing process which means fewer stem cells are wasted.

Cells4Life chairman Wayne Channon said this week that he was grateful to the musician Harry Judd for revealing that he had stored his daughter Lola’s umbilical cord with the company.

He said Harry and his wife Izzy were first introduced to Cells4Life at a baby show. “They were quite bowled over by the importance of stem cell technology. The future of medicine depends on it.”

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He added that the celebrity couple were “very switched on about the technology. They went through IVF and they researched a lot.”

He said he was “very grateful to Harry Judd for speaking out about it.

“We have more A-list celebrities on our books than you could poke a stick at, but he is one of the few who have come forward to talk about it.”

He said that in Singapore around 25 per cent of people stored their babies umbilical cords to protect against future illnesses, but in this country it was only around a half per cent.

Cells4Life says it stores more UK stem cell samples than any other private bank.

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