PRIVATE cord-blood bank Cordlife Group : P8A 0% on Thursday (Feb 29) announced that its chairman Joseph Wong has stepped down due to “personal family and health reasons”.

With effect from Wednesday, Wong no longer serves as the chairman of the board and the chairman of the audit and risk committee (ARC), said the group in a bourse filing.

Following Wong’s resignation, Dr Ho Choon Hou, the vice-chairman and non-independent, non-executive director of the company, has been appointed as acting chairman of the board with effect from Thursday until the appointment of a new chairman.

Cheong Tuck Yan, Cordlife’s independent director, has been appointed as chairman of the ARC, also with effect from Thursday.

Wong, however, will remain as an independent director and a member of the ARC and remuneration committee.

The changes in board members came after Cordlife named former TransGlobal executive director Yiu Pang Fai as the new group chief executive, effective from Feb 19, 2024, following the resignation of Tan Poh Lan in October last year.

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Cordlife was found to have damaged thousands of its customers’ cord-blood units by exposing the cryopreserved units in its seven tanks to suboptimal temperatures above minus 150 degrees Celsius.

As a result, the group is in the midst of a six-month suspension from collecting, testing, processing and storing new cord blood and human tissue, issued by the Ministry of Health in November last year.

Before the announcement, shares of Cordlife closed at S$0.29 on Thursday, down S$0.01 or 3.3 per cent.