By FIONA BARBER
Auckland researchers have failed to gain permission to transplant pig cells into people with insulin-dependent diabetes.
Health officials turned down an appli-cation from South Auckland company Diatranz to start clinical trials.
Diatranz, which has developed technology to extract and keep alive the insulin-producing pancreas cells from pigs, applied to give
24 patients the transplants.
If successful, the cells would lessen the need for insulin, which controls blood-sugar levels.
Without insulin, some diabetics suffer complications such as eye, kidney and nerve damage.
But the Director-General of Health, Dr Karen Poutasi, rejected the proposal on the advice of the Health Research Council's gene technology advisory committee.
The committee wanted more evidence of experimental work with animals.
Diatranz halted work on earlier human trials after overseas fears that a pig virus might cross species to infect people.
A research paper in the American Science journal later said it had found no evidence of the virus in 160 patients from several countries who had received a variety of pig tissues.
An editorial in the British medical journal The Lancet last month called for xenotransplantation (use of animal cells in humans) to leave the laboratory and begin the slow process of translating experiments into practice.
Diatranz will reapply for permission to start the transplants.
"We'll work with the Ministry of Health to resolving the outstanding issues," said Professor Bob Elliott, the researcher behind the pig-cell work.
Approval is being sought in two other countries that Diatranz would not name.
Dr Stewart Jessamine, the ministry's representative on the committee, said the group was trying to apply international draft guidelines.
"I regard this as a temporary setback," he said of the application.
Pig-cell transplants showed promise, but required more work.
Plans for the trial were lodged after preliminary tests with six patients.
Initial tests involving four patients had limited success, with insulin petering out after about 14 weeks, but cells transplanted into two patients in 1996 produced some insulin for up to two years.
Diatranz has been working with overseas scientists to master a coating for the cells, known as islets.
The company is financed by shareholders, but has received a grant from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.
It has also been backed by the Tindall Foundation, a charitable trust set up by The Warehouse retailing multimillionaire, Stephen Tindall, and his wife, Margaret.
