PPL Therapeutics licks its wounds over pig cloning accusation
By David Firn in London
Published: January 4 2002 18:52 | Last Updated: January 4 2002 18:56
Cloned pigs that produce organs for human transplant may well go down in history as one of the biggest medical achievements of the 21st century. But PPL Therapeutics has walked into a storm of criticism over its claims to have won the race to unveil cloned pigs with a key for organ rejection removed.
The Scottish biotechnology company on Friday was licking its wounds after accusations from leading scientists that it put out the news with little regard for scientific convention, merely to claim victory over its US rival Immerge BioTherapeutics.
PPL's piglets offer hope to hundreds of thousands of people who need organ transplants - a market worth up to $5bn. However, its shares, which soared 46 per cent to 77½p on Wednesday, fell 15.8 per cent to 62p on Friday, after it emerged that PPL had been beaten by its rivals, who had waited for independent scientific confirmation before revealing their achievement.
Glenn McGee, editor of the American Journal of Bioethics, said growing disregard for the peer-review process was turning basic science into a circus, with cute cloned pigs and human embryos as the acts.
Art Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics said there was a danger that without peer reviews, bogus research could be presented as truth, threatening scientific progress.
PPL's decision to circumvent the rules of the scientific establishment highlights a dilemma for companies operating at the forefront of research.
Traditionally, scientific breakthroughs reach the world through the filter of peer review journals. A thorough analysis of the data by leading scientists working in the field is supposed to ensure the results are robust.
Even for academics, the wait is fraught with fears that rival groups may win kudos by publishing faster but companies face the added complication that discoveries are price sensitive information. Keeping them out of the market may put them in breach of Stock Exchange rules.
PPL denies it attempted to scoop its competitors. It said it had made a deliberate decision to announce its breakthroughs directly to the press and stock market in 1997, after it was criticised by the financial community for waiting seven months to reveal the existence of Dolly in the journal Nature. Dolly was created in collaboration with the Roslin Institute, a public sector establishment.
"Scientists talk to each other. People do find out what you've done, so you can't wait to publish in a peer review journal," the company said. That Dolly's creation was price sensitive is beyond doubt. PPL shares leapt 66 per cent to an all time high of £5.55 when her birth was finally reported.
PPL says its scientists had checked that the five piglets really were genetically modified before making an announcement. However, Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal, says he is suspicious of any claims that were not backed up by relevant data.
"If you are another scientist whowants to review what they have done, you have nothing to go on if there is only a press release." he says.
Melanie Toyne-Sewell, a life sciences specialist at Financial Dynamics, a PR agency, says companies are wary of releasing data about their discoveries because it can jeopardise chances of subsequent publication in a journal.
"Peer review publications are an important marketing tool, because of their independence," she says. "But keeping important news it secret may breech the FSA rules."
Ruth Matthews, a professor of immunology who also runs NeuTec Pharma, a Manchester drug development company, says there is another argument for releasing news of breakthroughs.
"When you work in a hospital seeing people dying every day, you want to get news out as quickly as possible," she says.
PPL is not the first company to eschew peer review for its discoveries and despite the howl of disapproval it will not be the last. With the completion of the Human Genome Project and the emergence of biotechnology as the drug discovery powerhouse of the pharmaceutical industry, research results are becoming a more important tool for raising funds.
PPL does not have enough money to commercialise its xenotransplant work and is seeking a backer for the technology. The company's spin doctors may have raised hackles in the scientific community but they undoubtedly caught the attention of financiers.
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