After Dolly, PPL to work on pigs

After Dolly, PPL to work on pigs

PPL Therapeutics, the group which cloned Dolly the sheep to produce high quality protein, hopes to beat rival pharmaceuticals group Novartis in cloning pigs so their hearts can be used for human transplants by 2005.

Reporting a pounds 1.7m increase in pre-tax losses to pounds 6.7m for the first half of the year Ron James, PPL's managing director, said that the next step would be to transplant pigs' kidneys into humans. He added that owing to an acute shortage of human organs, up to 2m patients could benefit from the use of pigs' hearts and kidneys. PPL shares rose 1.5p to 132p.