[Pharm-policy] Setback for 'Human-Pig' Fusion Patent Bid

[James Love]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001006/hl/humanpig_1.html

Friday October 6 5:35 PM ET
Setback for 'Human-Pig' Fusion Patent Bid 

BERLIN (Reuters) - The European Patent Office said on Friday it had
deemed as ``contrary to morality'' methods described by two firms in a
cloning process in which they fused human and pig cells.

The fusion was described by Australia's Stem Cell Sciences and US-based
BioTransplant Inc. in a patent request to the Munich-based agency for a
processaimed at trying to find alternatives for organ transplants.

``The Office voiced an opinion that certain claims in this application
are contrary to morality,'' a spokesman said.

``As a consequence of this, the applicant did not pursue the application
any further,'' he added, saying that the request would be considered to
have lapsed within around two weeks if no further action was taken by
the applicant.

  [snip]

Greenpeace attacked the technology as ``Frankenstein science'' but
BioTransplant and Stem Cell said it had misconstrued the significance
and intention of the process.

They said that although one of the cells used in the experiment was a
laboratory cell line of human origin, it was incapable of creating a
human being. It added the creation of a hybrid pig-human organism was
``experimentally impossible.'' 


-- 
James Love  mailto:love@cptech.org http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
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