Our History

Where it all started

It was the fate of one person that laid the foundation for a worldwide community committed to giving patients a second chance at life. As an international nonprofit organization, DKMS is dedicated to saving the lives of patients with blood cancer and other blood disorders. It was founded in Germany in 1991 by Dr. Peter Harf, successful businessman and loving father of two daughters, and transplant physician Gerhard Ehninger. After losing his wife Mechtild to leukemia, Peter set about delivering on the promise he had made to her: to ensure there was a matching donor for every blood cancer patient in need. Since then, Peter and his daughters Viktoria von Wulffen and Katharina Harf, Chair of the DKMS Foundation Board, have worked tirelessly to keep that promise.

DKMS milestones

1991

• DKMS is founded in Tübingen.

1992

• In March, the first DKMS donor donates bone marrow for a patient in France.

1996

• We introduce the procedure of peripheral stem cell collection as an alternative to bone marrow collection.

1998

• For the 1,000th time, a DKMS stem cell donor gives a blood cancer patient a second chance at life.

2003

• We record one million registered stem cell donors.

2004

• The first international DKMS location is founded in the USA in New York.

2007

• The swab test with cotton swabs is introduced as an alternative method for analyzing tissue characteristics.

2009

• DKMS Poland is founded in Warsaw.

2013

• DKMS UK is founded in London.
• We introduce the Clinical Trials Unit (CTU) in Dresden as our own research unit for clinical trials.

2014

• We launch "World Blood Cancer Day" (WBCD) - the global day of action against blood cancer, which is celebrated annually on May 28.
• For the first time, over one million donors register with us within a single year.

2015

• The 50,000th stem cell collection from a DKMS donor takes place in Cologne.

2018

• In April, we celebrate the founding of our new location in Chile in Santiago de Chile.

2019

• In June, the DKMS BMST Foundation India is founded in Bangalore.

2020

• On World Blood Cancer Day, we celebrate the ten millionth donor in our international registry. As the world's leading stem cell donor center, we now account for around 30% of the total number of donors worldwide.
• DKMS enters into a partnership with the South African "The Sunflower Fund". The two charitable organizations have been working together as "The Sunflower Fund powered by DKMS" since June. We are now active in seven countries - Since March 2021 independently as DKMS Africa.
• With DKMS Stem Cell Bank (formerly DKMS Cord Blood Bank) and DKMS Registry, we are founding two new subsidiaries.

2021

• On May 28, 2021, DKMS celebrates its 30th birthday with an online anniversary show in Berlin's Café Moskau.
• In Bangalore, India, DKMS opened a transplant center for children with thalassemia together with other charitable partners. The new bone marrow transplant unit is part of an extensive aid program with which we are expanding our mission.

2022

• May 10, 2022 is a very special day: DKMS is celebrating 100,000 second chances at life for patients with blood cancer or other life-threatening blood disorders around the world.
• DKMS's typing laboratory, the DKMS Life Science Lab in Dresden, celebrates its 25th anniversary.

2023

• On April 1, the first collection center operated by DKMS started its work in Dresden: the DKMS Collection Center. The launch in Cologne followed on August 1, 2023.

2024

• January 25, the first DKMS Collection Center in Santiago de Chile opened its doors: the first center in Chile overall dedicated exclusively to collection via apheresis. The center will double the capacity of possible collections each year in Chile, increasing the possibilities that patients with blood cancer in the region and the world can have for a second chance at life.