Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

GTCB in Newsweek’s special issue:
“Your Health in the 21st Century”

[There is no link because this article is not available on Newsweek’s website. (GTCB may eventually republish this article on its own website.) I bought the printed issue of Newsweek and I’ve typed in a short excerpt that pertains to GTCB.]

>>
It’s a Gene Pool Party

…
“Nobody here is trying to make a humanized goat,” says Tom Newberry, vice president of corporate communications for GTC Biotherapeutics. “These are goats with a little bit of genetic programming.” More specifically, the goats Newberry is talking about contain a human gene that enables them to produce a human blood protein, antithrombin, in their milk. Antithrombin, an anticoagulant, is the first of a series of human blood proteins GTC plans to develop using transgenic-animal technology. The market for such products has been created in part by ongoing questions about the safety of the worldwide blood supply. Using transgenic goats to make antithrombin and other blood proteins is also cheaper and more efficient than traditional lab techniques. “We’re basically harnessing nature’s own organ for making proteins,” says Newberry, “and simply giving it an additional set of instructions to make a protein that we’re interested in therapeutically.”

Using established recombinant-DNA techniques, GTC scientists transfer the designated human gene (called a transgene) into fertilized goat eggs, then transfer the embryos into surrogate mothers. The baby goats are tested for the presence of the transgene and for their milk productivity. Typically, traditional breeding methods are then used to crate a “production herd.” GTC’s antithrombin product, brand name ATryn, is currently under review by the European Medicines Agency, and the company is in the process of enrolling patients (with a hereditary deficiency of antithrombin) for a clinical trial in the United States that builds on an earlier trial in Europe.
<<