Living Cell Technologies indicated that its review on the state of the art of using encapsulated porcine cells for the treatment of insulin dependent diabetes has been published in a recent issue of the science journal, Expert Opinion on Biological Therapies.
The scientific review is an update summarising how recent advances overcome technical hurdles to deliver insulin producing pig cells to people with diabetes in a way that evades rejection by the immune system without using toxic immune suppressive drugs.
LCT CEO, Dr Paul Tan said, "LCT's Medical Director Professor Bob Elliott and Dr Christopher Thanos, previously an employee of LCT and now an independent consultant to LCT and a Visiting Scholar at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA, are recognized experts in this field."
The review presents an overview of the long held goal of a bioartificial pancreas that is made up of cells that produce insulin for people who are not able to make their own insulin. Such cells have come from pigs because of the shortage of human donors. In the past 5 years, the scientific community have developed criteria to critically select donor animals in clean breeding facilities and which are screened against various viruses.
The authors described the many attempts to implant these pig cells in protective spheres, sheets, cylinders, rods, discs or other structures and often with immunosuppressive drugs that prevent T cells of the body's immune system from rejecting the implanted cells.
The paper tracks implants of pig islets dating to the first attempt in Sweden in 1994 with immune suppression to more recent implants in New Zealand without using immunosuppressive drugs.
Their review concludes "With advances in biomaterial design, source tissue selection and the evolution of critical cell processing techniques, contemporary encapsulated porcine islet therapies offer a new level of clinical promise.
LCT's lead product, DIABECELL® comprising encapsulated neonatal porcine pancreatic islets, is presently in Phase I/IIa human clinical trial without immune suppression.
Reference: CG Thanos, RB Elliott. Encapsulated porcine islet transplantation: an evolving therapy for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Expert Opinion on Biological Therapies. 2009; 9 (1): 29 -44. [The full article is available from www.expertopin.com upon subscription]
