Commitment to health equity

Our mission is to save lives through cell therapy. Since our founding in 1987, we’ve worked to find cures and save lives for patients with blood cancers and disorders. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished so far—but our mission is far from over. We want to create a world where every patient can receive their cell therapy and we’re more committed than ever to help remove barriers to transplant.

We prioritize equitable access to transplants in every decision we make—from funding research to expanding collection centers—ensuring real, impactful change

As we look to the future, we know that a strong plan will enable us to have an exponentially larger impact on the field of cell therapy. That’s why in 2024, we developed a five-year strategic plan to prepare us to combat future challenges. The three pillars of this plan are focused on accelerating progress, being a world-class partner and expanding access. Two of those have direct ties to addressing health equity disparities in cell therapy.

• Accelerating progress: Our goal is to advance the cell therapy ecosystem to provide cures so all patients thrive, regardless of ethnicity.
• Expand access: We’ll work to remove barriers that prevent anyone from accessing life-saving cell therapies. 

While we’ve always been devoted to saving lives, we know it takes a concerted effort on behalf of our ethnically diverse patients and donors to rebuild trust and meet unique needs. Someone’s background shouldn’t be a barrier to getting the treatment they need.

To that end, over the past few years, we’ve committed ourselves to supporting lasting change by:

• Earmarking $250,000 by the end of 2021 to partner with community and civic organizations serving diverse communities such as the National Urban League Young Professionals
• Doubling the number of lives saved in underserved populations with no discernable difference in outcomes by 2023
• Adding a paid community engagement fellowship in the Twin Cities focused on building relationships and increasing trust with ethnically diverse communities
• Increasing the number of interns from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) by 50%
• Providing continuous encouragement and resources for our employees to donate and volunteer in impacted communities near them
• Increasing our resources throughout the organization to become a place where everyone belongs 
• Supporting a culture of inclusion at all levels and building relationships with community organizations and experts who can magnify our NMDP^SM goals

We’re proud to announce that we’ve been able to meet each and every commitment.

Learn why ethnicity and diversity matters when matching

Not every patient has a full donor match on the NMDP Registry^SM, especially those with ethnically diverse ancestries. A person is most likely to match a donor of a similar ethnic background because the genes that doctors use to pair patients and donors are inherited. Unfortunately, the registry isn’t diverse enough to ensure every patient finds a fully matched donor.

Our NMDP Donor for All initiative aims to safely unlock access to peripheral blood stem cell and bone marrow transplants through many innovative research efforts using partially matched donors. This will significantly expand patients’ options for suitable donors—all while providing outcomes in line with using a fully matched donor. 

Cord blood as a graft source for transplant continues to help ethnically diverse patients receive transplant. Matching requirements for cord blood are less stringent than those of an adult donor, allowing cord blood to overcome human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matching barriers. We’ve kicked off a variety of programs to support transplant centers and their patients in leveraging cord blood as a graft source more often and with more ease.

While the NMDP Registry provides access to more than 42 million donors around the world, for many, a donor match doesn’t exist. More people are needed to join so patients have a greater chance of finding a match. We’re using innovative approaches to recruit not only younger and more ethnically diverse donors but those who will step up and help a patient when needed.

Our regional teams are building sustainable relationships with trusted organizations and partners within communities. Other regional initiatives include:

• Enhancing messaging, programs and tools to meet individual needs and barriers
• Partnerships with HBCUs
• An Asian American and Pacific Islander member enrollment program

In addition, to better meet the needs of Hispanic patients, we expanded our operations to México in 2017. Since then, the NMDP México^SM team has made significant progress in recruiting in the country. To date, there more than 180,000 potential donors on the NMDP Registry in México.

Read more in our 5-year plan

We’re fully committed to making blood stem cell treatment access available for everyone. To do that, we need your help. There are many ways to get involved, including partnering with us to give your employees, customers or members the opportunity to save lives—or helping to diversify the registry by signing up to be a potential donor. Any way you choose, you will make an impact.