Announcement of NMDP Associate Registry Increases Pool of Donors

Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation, NMDP Form Alliance to Save Lives

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- May 17, 2004

The National Marrow Donor Program^® (NMDP) and the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation have teamed up to create the NMDP's first Associate Donor Registry, providing NMDP transplant centers and their patients with direct access to Gift of Life's more than 75,000 volunteer donors.

The partnership enhances the NMDP's continuing efforts to offer patients and their doctors a wide array of services and support to improve access to blood and marrow transplants and save lives.

Gift of Life manages a registry of donors recruited from Jewish communities throughout the United States. Through specialized outreach initiatives, Gift of Life's recruitment mission increases the representation of donors of Jewish ethnic ancestry.

"This membership model allows NMDP transplant centers to access donors recruited through the Gift of Life Registry through a single search," said Jeffrey W. Chell, M.D., chief executive officer of the NMDP. "This is a great example of the innovative relationships that can make it easier for patients and their doctors to find a matching donor."

"As the recipient of a successful bone marrow transplant, I understand the anxiety families encounter when faced with serious illness," said Jay Feinberg, founder and executive director of the Gift of Life. "This new relationship will provide another pathway for transplant physicians to facilitate timely searches for their patients."

The Associate Donor Registry is modeled after the international registry concept. Arrangements with international cooperative registries make an additional 3.8 million donors available to searching physicians.

The Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation

The Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation was established in 1991 as a donor recruitment organization to help save the life of New Jersey leukemia patient Jay Feinberg, who serves as the organization's executive director. Its mission is to facilitate bone marrow transplants for patients around the world suffering from life-threatening illnesses by increasing the representation of the Jewish people in the bone marrow donor pool. The Foundation manages a registry of more than 75,000 volunteers willing to participate as stem cell donors should they be matched with patients needing transplants. The database is made available to transplant centers in the United States and abroad, as well as the search coordinating units of other domestic and foreign registries. The Foundation processes patient search requests, orders additional testing of potentially matched donors, and facilitates the ultimate collection and delivery of donor grafts to the transplant centers. For more information about Gift of Life, please visit www.giftoflife.org.