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Can Alexion Bring Home Bacon?
Scientists hope altering pig cells may make swine-to-human transplants possible
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Business New Haven
3/22/1999
By: BNH
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Officials at Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. of New Haven say they are close to figuring out how pigs can figure in the treatment of human organ failures, spinal-cord injuries and illnesses such as Parkinson's disease.
At a “top-secret farm,” according to news reports, Alexion scientists have been growing pigs whose DNA has been altered with human genes. Working with scientists in Australia, the researchers say they have devised a way to alter a sugar-like molecule in pig cells so that human antibodies would not recognize it as foreign.
The notion of transplanting animal parts into humans, a process known as xenotransplantations, isn't new. But until recently no one knew how to keep the human body from rejecting the organs. Some 18,000 organ transplantations are performed each year in the U.S., and more than 40 patients await donor organs at any one time.
Alexion's first altered pigs contained a human gene called CD-59. Scientists hoped the grafted gene would fool the human immune system into believing that the pig parts were human.
While the transplanted organs from those pigs were able to survive for a few days, the body eventually rejected them.
The new molecular alteration, which Alexion has patented, has enabled its scientists to transplant brain cells from their transgenic pigs into rodents with a syndrome similar to Parkinson's disease, a degenerative nerve condition which affects motor function.
The transplanted cells survived, and became neurotransmitters in the animals brains, helping to ease the tremors, Alexion officials said.
Similar experiments are now being conducted with baboons. If they are successful, Alexion hopes to begin human trials by the end of 1999. Researchers say they hope that humans may be able to receive permanent organ transplants from swine within 15 years.
On March 15 Alexion announced that it had incurred a net loss of $4.88 million for the quarter ending January 31, compared to a loss of $2.758 million for the same period a year ago. Research and licensing revenues for the quarter fell due to the termination of the license and collaboration research agreement with Genetic Therapy Inc.
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