Trials on pig cells 'in weeks'

Health Minister Tony Ryall. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Human trials of a diabetes treatment using implanted pig cells could start within weeks after a preliminary decision by the Government, says Living Cell Technologies.

The former Labour Government in October gave the Auckland company permission, subject to a review, to restart human trials on pig cell transplants halted in New Zealand in 1997.

Health Minister Tony Ryall says he has sent a preliminary decision for consultation with the company and once that legal process has been completed he will release a final decision.

The treatment involves taking insulin-producing cells from the pancreases of pigs, coating them with a highly purified seaweed-based gel to stop rejection and inserting them into a patient's abdomen.

Living Cell founding director David Collinson said the preliminary decision was fantastic news.

"It really means we can start planning forward of what we're going to do down south for employment and for the company too, what our plans are for New Zealand, makes it easier."

He said the company had farms in Auckland and Invercargill, with about 18 animals and 40 animals respectively, and planned to open a $2.5 million high-tech pig breeding facility next month in Invercargill.

"It's a huge signal for New Zealand that they are interested in going into biotechnology industries."

About 30 million people have Type 1 diabetes and the cost per treatment is estimated at $100,000.

The company said it needed to build 80 pig facilities during the next few years to meet the market demand, which would be enough to treat 30,000 to 40,000 people a year. ASX-listed Living Cell said it had accepted Ryall's preliminary decision to issue a new conditional authorisation for its New Zealand clinical trial for insulin-dependent diabetes.

The company said the clinical protocol for the New Zealand trial had already been amended according to the proposed new conditions.

The ethics committee at Middlemore Hospital needed to approve changes to the protocols and patients had to be observed for two months before being implanted to make sure their diabetes was under control.

Depending on final approval from the minister and the Middlemore ethics committee, the trial could be up and running in about six to eight weeks.

Living Cell was already running trials in Russia which it said had been extended to eight people, with the last patient expected to receive treatment next week. All patients had benefited and two people were now off insulin.

NZ's low-virus environment made pigs here ideal for medical use.

According to Living Cell, Ryall's letter said: "The proposed condition that would require [LCT] to amend the inclusion criteria of [LCT's] study ... is essential to ensure that the study complies with international guidelines, which require that participants obtain maximum benefit possible from their participation in the study. The other proposed changes to the existing conditions are matters that LCT has agreed are appropriate during the peer review process, or are changes of a procedural, rather than a substantive nature."

The company said it was also working on a treatment for Parkinson's disease. About 2500 disorders could be treated with animal cell therapy.