Diabetics queue up for pig treatment

More than 1000 Kiwi diabetics have volunteered to be injected with pig cells as part of a clinical trial for a radical treatment they hope may lead to a cure.

However, overseas experts say they have serious reservations about starting human trials so soon.

Auckland biotech company Living Cell Technologies started its clinical trial at Middlemore Hospital yesterday, with the first transplant expected within two months.

The company's founder and medical director, Bob Elliott, said two of the eight patients in a Russian trial had shown "insulin independence", meaning the body was producing its own insulin, reducing the need for injections. Some cells were still producing insulin after 18 months.

The eight New Zealand patients chosen from a shortlist of about 30 will receive doses two to three times higher.

"We get calls every day. I'd say well over 1000 people so far have registered their interest," Professor Elliott said.

However, Anthony D'Apice, director of the Immunology Research Centre of Melbourne's St Vincent's Hospital and former president of the International Xenotransplantation Association, said that international scientists had recommended against allowing clinical trials.

"We did not believe they had sufficient pre-clinical data to warrant clinical trials," he said yesterday.

The association would have preferred to have seen more success in primate trials before humans were treated with the pig cells.

But Professor Elliott said the primate model of research was severely flawed.

The Russian trial had shown the risks were "vanishingly small", while the benefits were demonstrable.

Considering the potential benefits, the ban on clinical trials in Australia, Canada and other countries was unreasonable, he said.

"One might even go a bit further and say they [regulatory authorities] are failing in their duty of care to patients."

The case for approval was boosted in 2007 after researchers discovered pig cells injected into Matamata man Michael Helyer in 1996 were still producing insulin. That trial was aborted because of disease fears.

Mr Helyer, 53, has just learned he needs laser surgery to prevent him losing his sight as a result of damage to the blood vessels in his eyes from diabetes.

However, he believes his condition would be much worse without the dose of pig cells.

"That put the brakes on it a bit," he said.

"They know it works it's only red tape and vested business interests that have held it up."

He said he would go to Russia for treatment as soon as it became commercially available.

About 15,000 New Zealanders have type-1 diabetes, which is caused by too much sugar in the blood because the pancreas cannot make enough insulin.

- © Fairfax NZ News