Wellington, July 23 NZPA - A biotechnology company rearing piglets for pig-to-human transplants says it has a lock on the Auckland Islands' feral pigs from which it formed its founder herd.

Living Cell Technology (LCT) -- an Australian-listed biotech start-up which does most of its research in New Zealand -- said today it has a deal with the Department of Conservation (DOC) giving it first claim on live feral pigs brought off the Auckland Islands, 400km south of Bluff.

"We have a very good relationship with DOC which gives us first rights to these animals," said LCT medical director Bob Elliot, who carried out the original research.

"DOC has said that if any animals are coming off, they are going to us, at least for the foreseeable future," he told a media briefing on xenotransplantation.

A spokesman for DOC's southern conservancy, Andy Roberts, confirmed that LCT has a "concession" for pigs captured on the islands.

The wild pig population -- which DOC wants to eventually eradicate -- varied around 1000, depending on the season, he said.

The long-snouted pigs, whose ancestors were released on Auckland Island in 1807 by Abraham Bristow, captain of the sailing vessel Sarah, have suddenly gained star status in the biotechnology sector.

LCT has publicised two key claims over its planned therapy for type-1 diabetes: it encapsulates cells from the pigs in a seaweed gel to avoid an immune reaction in human patients, and the cells are taken from quarantined animals bred from pigs kept isolated from modern animal diseases for 200 years.

The company today started work on a clinical trial which will implant islet cells from the pancreas of pigs into eight human diabetics, with the first operation two months away.

If the two-year trial goes well -- putting LCT on a commercial path to supplement insulin-production in about 5 percent of the world's 200 million diabetics -- LCT will roll out other pig cell remedies, including potential therapies for parkinson's disease.

Earlier this month LCT opened its first dedicated quarantine pig farm -- a $2.5 million unit housing house 50 pigs -- near Invercargill and its founder, Professor Elliott, said it may eventually require 80 to 100 piggeries. One sow can produce enough piglets each year to treat one diabetic.

That opening was attended by founding LCT director David Collinson, who has estimated that "pharma-pig" breeding could become worth billions of dollars to the Southland economy.

But construction of further units will depend on the success in clinical trials of its product, DiabecellB, in helping diabetes patients produce more insulin.

The original recovery of pigs in 1999 was done for the Rare Breeds Society, but though LCT expected to require more pigs from the islands to broaden the genetic base of its herd, it did not have the money to build quarters for them on the mainland this summer, Prof Elliott said.

"There are animals still present on the Auckland Islands which we have our eye on," he said.

Asked whether LCT should be attempting to block other researchers from accessing the isolated pig herds on the islands, Dr Elliott said: "Commercially? Of course we are...we wouldn't want too many people trying the same thing".

He said any pigs coming off the island would have to be kept in isolation for three years, fed no animal proteins and tested regularly: "So, if anybody did go down there and get some, they've got a three-year wait before they can use the animals".

Eventually LCT hoped to build 80 to 100 piggeries to supply material for hundreds, or even thousands of xenotransplants each year.

"If it all goes well, and we get good results out these first trials, that's the sort of numbers we will need," he said.

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