ANIMAL rights activists claim a biotech firm developing pig organs for
transplant into humans has fled Britain as a result of an expos茅 of the
way it treats laboratory animals.
But Imutran, the Cambridge-based company that has been developing
鈥渪enotransplant鈥� technology for eight years, says it is moving to the US for
business reasons, to join forces with BioTransplant of Charlestown,
Massachusetts.
The company denies that its decision had anything to do with an escalation in
violence against researchers perpetrated by animal rights activists. Nor, says
the company, was it influenced by the release last month of a document by the
lobby group, Uncaged Campaigns, criticising the standard of care given to
primates in Imutran鈥檚 research.
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Imutran, a subsidiary of Switzerland-based multinational Novartis, will scale
down and close its operations in Cambridge by Christmas. The company鈥檚 tests on
pig organs in primates are continuing in the US and Canada, but came to an end
in Britain earlier this year.
鈥淭he decision鈥as nothing to do with the [Uncaged Campaigns] inquiry,鈥� says
a spokeswoman for Imutran.
Dan Lyons, who wrote the report for Uncaged Campaigns, believes that pressure
from antivivisectionists did play a part in Imutran鈥檚 decision. 鈥淚 suspect this
report might have been the final straw driving them abroad,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey
should have made an ethical decision and stopped throwing good money after bad.鈥�