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Biotech / Medical : Biotransplant(BTRN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Icebrg who wrote (1170)	12/27/2001 2:25:22 PM
From: Arthur Radley	Respond to of 1475

More news from MEDI...enrollment for Phase II completed and dosing will be done in Q1 -02 for MEDI-507. Appears 02 will be busy year for BTRN and MEDI.

To: Icebrg who wrote (1170)	1/3/2002 2:21:21 AM
From: Icebrg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1475

PPL's five little cloned piggies come to market By David Firn in London and Victoria Griffith in Boston Published: January 2 2002 18:39 \| Last Updated: January 2 2002 19:26 PPL Therapeutics brought new hope to people with heart failure, kidney disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's on Wednesday, when it revealed the birth of cloned piglets, genetically engineered to be more compatible with humans. The birth of Noel, Angel, Star, Joy and Mary on Christmas day, brings xenotransplants - animal organs for human transplantation - significantly closer to becoming a reality. The so-called knock-out pigs have had one of the key genes responsible for transplant rejection inactivated. News that pig cells producing insulin could be tested in human trials within four years sent PPL shares up 24-1/4p to 77-1/2p, a 55 per cent premium on September's £32m ($46.57m) rights issue. "Cloning knock-out pigs was the hardest part. It is now only a matter of time before we are there," said Ron James, PPL director. However, a lack of funding may see PPL, which was responsible for creating Dolly the sheep, overtaken by competitors which are also working on knock-out pigs. Infigen and BioTransplant the US biotechnology companies and Novartis the Swiss pharmaceuticals group are also making rapid advances in xenotransplantation. PPL said it expected similar achievements to be announced shortly. Mr James said PPL had held preliminary talks with a company interested in buying the technology. Venture capital backing was also an option. "We need to spin this out to get it adequately funded," he said. Pigs are the preferred species for xenotransplantation for a number of scientific reasons, but a molecule on the surface of their cells triggers an immune reaction that causes rejection within minutes of the organ being transplanted. Other groups have cloned pigs but PPL is the first to announce it has deactivated the gene responsible for the immune reaction. The breakthrough opens the way to creating herds of cloned pigs, ending the shortage of replacement organs for people who require transplants. They could also produce replacement brain cells for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Analysts say the market for pig parts could be worth more than $11bn-a-year. However, significant hurdles remain before they can be transplanted into humans. PPL says it is already working on other three more genes responsible for organ compatibility. There is concern that xenotransplantation could transfer dangerous viruses to humans. PPL stunned the scientific world when it revealed Dolly the cloned sheep in 1997, but the shares have never returned to their peak of 500p reached when the company floated in 1996. Arousing commercial interest in cloning has proved harder than expected. Meanwhile breakthroughs in stem cell research, which could allow the cloning of "spare" human organs, have overshadowed animal cloning. Pharming, the Dutch cloning company went into liquidation last year, while PPL struggled to raise enough money to bring AAT, a drug produced in cloned sheep's milk, to the market. news.ft.com