SUMMARY:   Traveling offshore to obtain adult stem cell therapy for the failing heart could save insurance companies huge money compared with the cost of multiple hospital admissions at home, according to a U.S. man who traveled to Thailand recently for adult stem cell therapy – a therapy that has helped return hundreds of patients to a more active, pain-free and longer life.

BANGKOK, Thailand, July 11 2007 -  Like many other heart failure patients Stephen

Bishop found himself on the expensive treadmill of hospital admissions, many follow- ups and many visits to a variety of doctors. ‘I was in hospital three or four times a year. A two week stay costs around $250,000. I’m going to do that at least twice in a year and that does not include the cascade of medical events that dog heart failure patients, like diabetes, kidney, respiratory and infection concerns that flow from a depressed immune system,’ he said. ‘There are a lot of downfalls associated with being ill, but I believe my immunity was greatly improved after adult stem cell therapy. I never even got a cold after treatment,’ he continued.

Stephen has joined the hundreds of other heart failure patients who have traveled to Thailand to experience the best of care in superbly equipped hospitals and the trip and the therapy has saved a great deal of money as well. ‘I realize there is the question of value, or how much you are going to get out of this. It’s no different from a heart transplant in that respect. Even if you get a heart transplant before you die you have to deal with rejection of that organ and cancer associated with the immunosuppressant drugs that you must take. Some people do wonderfully and some don’t. But a heart transplant is about a million dollars and stem cell therapy with its high success rate costs only about forty thousand for a procedure less invasive than taking insulin. I think the insurance companies don’t look at this because they don’t think they have to,’ he said.

Many westerners have worked for much of their life and received health insurance that they thought was adequate – until they need it and discover that it is not at all adequate. Resentment at having to pay for health care follows, but as Stephen says, ‘I don’t know if the economic outcomes have ever been weighed or examined. If I were a U.S. senator and my wife got sick and she could not be treated in her own country but had to be taken offshore, I would be embarrassed for my inactivity, for I had not only neglected to protect my wife but I had failed the people who put me in office.’

Theravitae, the multi-national company headquartered in Bangkok has led the field in cost-effective patient outcomes using patients’ own adult stem cells. Recently they received the prestige of being awarded “Biotechnology Company of the Year’ as a mark of regional excellence. Hundreds of cardiomyopathy, ischemic heart disease and congestive heart failure patients have received their VesCell stem cell therapy and outcomes show that a conservative 75 percent have obtained an enhanced quality of life as measured clinically and by self-report. Patients who had been told that there was nothing more that could be done for them are now working, driving and playing. While the politicians bicker and the insurance companies do nothing, these people have taken charge of their own life and have gone to where the help is available right now.