East Hills, NY and Cambridge, MA -- ViaCell, Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAC) and Pall Corporation (NYSE: PLL) announced today the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance of a cord blood collection bag suitable for use in a sterile field. Pall and ViaCell collaborated on the development and design of the new collection bag. ViaCell has exclusive rights to the new collection bag for family cord blood banking and expects to introduce it as part of its ViaCord collection kit. The new sterile field bag will give families and their health care providers the ability to more safely and easily collect umbilical cord blood from newborns, even when born by cesarean section.

Umbilical cord blood is a valuable source of stem cells used to treat more than 40 life threatening diseases including a wide range of cancers, immune deficiencies and genetic disorders. Collection of cord blood is a critical first step in the process of preserving a baby's umbilical cord blood to meet these and other future medical needs. It is important that the collection kit simply and aseptically collect as much blood as possible since larger units for cord blood generally produce more viable stem cells.

"I believe the new ViaCord collection bag provides a significant benefit to the obstetrician," said Yoni Branhard, M.D., Vice Chairman of the OB-GYN Department, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City. "This is an innovative initiative in cord blood banking. The sterile bag gives my colleagues and me the comfort that, no matter how we deliver a child vaginally or by cesarean - we are collecting the cord blood in a high quality manner."

Collecting blood from the umbilical cord of babies born by cesarean section, unlike vaginal births, must be done in a sterile surgical field. There are about 1.2 million cesarean sections performed in the U.S. each year, representing about 30 percent of all births. Since not all cesarean births are planned, ViaCell intends to include the new
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Contact: Marcia Katz
marcia_katz@pall.com
516-801-9851
Pall Corporation
25-Apr-2006

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