- LONDON (www.nandotimes.com) - Imutran, a leading company in the development
of animal-to-human transplants, said Thursday it plans to use pig livers
in the treatment of human patients.
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- The British subsidiary of Swiss pharmaceutical
giant Novartis said the genetically modified pig livers could be an interim
measure until a suitable human organ is found.
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- "What we are thinking of doing is
using the liver as a temporary support, outside the body, as a sort of
dialysis machine for patients in liver failure to allow the doctors to
buy time until a human organ becomes available for transplantation,"
Dr Corrine Savill, Imutran's chief operating officer, told BBC radio.
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- The company detailed its plans ahead
of a Department of Health announcement later on Thursday that is expected
to outline tough new guidelines for xenotransplantation, the use of organs,
tissue or cells from a different species.
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- Savill said the company is still developing
the technique but will put in an application under the regulations that
the government is expected to bring in.
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- "We still have to complete a number
of studies looking primarily at the safety of this technique. When they
are complete we would feel we are in a position to go ahead," she
added.
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- Imutran is looking at 160 patients around
the world who have already been treated with living pig tissues to see
if there are any problems in the safety or science of the technique. The
human immune system can reject pig organs, which can be fatal.
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- "They basically have to be sure
that in addition to the science, i.e. the immunosuppression being right,
that the safety aspects are correct as well," an Imutran spokeswoman
said in a telephone interview.
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- Thousands of people die every year because
of a shortage of donated organs. Up to 50,000 people in Europe are waiting
for transplants and demand is growing by 15 percent a year.
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- Xenotransplantation, particularly the
use of pig organs,which are approximately the same size as their human
equivalents, were thought to be an ideal solution until scientists discovered
two types of pig viruses capable of infecting humans.
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- Scientists do not know if the viruses
-- called porcine endogenous retroviruses -- can be transferred to humans
during transplants. But the news sparked fears about the potential risk
of viral infection in humans and led to call for a moratorium on xenotransplantation.
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- The Imutran studies, which are due to
be completed later this year, will give scientists some indication of the
safety of using pig tissue.
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- "It should give them some very useful
information because these 160 people have had some kind of living pig tissue
during the last 10 years and that will be able to tell them whether or
not there has been any transmission of virus from the pig to these people.
That is a very important study," the spokeswoman said.
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- The study will also be analyzed by the
Centers for Disease Control in the United States. Novartis and Imutran
are in research collaborations all over the world.
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- "Where and when it (the pig liver
dialysis) will happen has not been determined yet," the spokeswoman
added.
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- PPL Therapeutics, the company that helped
to create Dolly the cloned sheep, announced a deal with ProBio America
last week to try to clone pigs for organ transplants. PPL will be licensed
by ProBio to the Honolulu technique that produced 50 cloned mice.
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