Jeevan

About

Due to a paucity of funds, Jeevan has stopped accepting cord blood donations and is seeking a bank to take ownership of their 6,000+ cord blood unit inventory.

Jeevan (also known as BeTheCure.in) was the first public cord blood bank set up in India, funded by a tie-up with the state of Tamil Nadu, that enabled quick and affordable (free for the poor) access to matching stem cells from donated umbilical cord blood for the life-saving treatment of Indians with blood cancers, thalassaemia, and other blood disorders.

The parent organization Jeevan Blood Bank, established in 1995, was a pioneering blood bank in India and the first to be accredited to international standards. In Nov. 2008, Jeevan began banking stem cells from donated cord blood, under the leadership of founders Dr. P. Srinivasan and Dr. Saranya Narayan, Unfortunately, in 2017 Jeevan shut down their blood bank due to rising competition from multiple low-cost banks. However, their registry of stem cell donors continued.

The Jeevan registry of cord blood donors was funded by a state tie-up. In April 2013, Jeevan Stem Cell Bank received a grant of Rs. 9 crore ($1.5 million) from the state government of Tamil Nadu. Under the terms of the partnership, Jeevan was required to release 75% of the units free of cost to patients referred by government hospitals. Jeevan could release the remaining 25% of the units on a commercial basis in a series of tiers based on patient income. This plan was supposed to ensure that the Jeevan bank would remain financially viable even after the state funding was depleted. The inventory of Jeevan public cord blood bank was 1568 by summer 2014. Jeevan received another loan of $2.56 million from a World Bank-aided fund to scale up the inventory by another 5,000 units. By early 2018, Jeevan’s inventory was 6438 donated cord blood units. This is the largest public cord blood inventory in South Asia.

Unfortunately, Jeevan was not able to achieve financial stability. Meanwhile, the popularity of Community Banking in India has undermined the business model of Jeevan. As of 2025, Jeevan no longer participates in the NMDP donor registry.