The cells are kept in liquid nitrogen, actually. The cost has a lot to do with back ups, insurance, FDA compliance, inventory management, shipping, etc. As with most things, we can achieve some savings with scale, and I do intend to bring the cost down for all as we can do so. It's our goal to make this available to as many people as possible, not just people with a lot of disposable income.Medical freezers chew through a lot of kwh, makes sense to me.
We outsource the storage to a clinical grade biorepository. Perhaps one day we will build our own facility for such a thing, but that's an entire new competency all together. We use a very large and reputable facility. We don't accept cells isolated by other facilities. Our credentialed doctors work out of their own clinics or surgery centers. We have a Forever Labs representative there on site to take the bone marrow, spin it down in the centrifuge and then they're placed in three aliquots. Then they're placed on dry ice and shipped to the biorepository. Below is a photo of me directly after having my own stem cells isolated. One of the proudest moments of my life. The birth of my children vs. this moment.... the kids win by a hair :)