New Zealand prepares to open its doors to xenotransplantation trials
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
New Zealand cell therapy firm Living Cell Technologies (Auckland) has received conditional government approval for clinical trials to go ahead on its DiabeCell Type 1 diabetes treatment. The company is hopeful that trials of its technology, which involves the transplantation into humans of living cells from pigs – “natural neo-natal porcine islets encapsulated in an alginate gel” – will soon be approved in the US too. “We are currently in talks with the FDA, and if all goes well we might get approval by mid-2009,” medical director Bob Elliott told Clinica.