Post by
narcissist on Feb 01, 2012 9:53am
Clinical Trials in China
An incoherent and dated October 2010 allvoices.com "story" full of misspellings [i.e voclosparin (sic)] by spammer Robert Tilford, a former infantryman whose gmail account has been shut down several times by Google, alleged that ISA was involved in China's illicit organ transplant industry. That story has failed to gain any traction since it appeared 15 months ago and was based on the thinnest of evidence, namely that "Isotechnika Pharma (TSX:ISA) announced it had signed a development and commercialization agreement with a Chinese biotech firm 3SBIO." That's it. Tilford's "story" was based exclusively on a presentation by David Matas, a human rights lawyer based in Winnipeg and a presentation of his, "Anti-rejection Drug Trials and Sales in China," presented at American Transplant Congress, Philadelphia, April 30, 2011. In that presentation Matas insinuates that several major international Pharmas who have done clinical trials in Chna in recent years MAY have violated international protocols (specifically, World Health Organization principle 11) on the sourcing of transplant organs. The WHO protocol stipulates that organ sources "...must be transparent and open to scrutiny, while ensuring that the personal anonymity and privacy of donors and recipients are always protected." We must point out that ISA has never done clinical trials in China - thus the implication that ISA is involved in this practice is absurd. The companies that have done organ transplant clinical trials in China in recent years include: Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, and Astellas. While there is no hard evidence that any of these companies have sourced the organs used in these trials in violation of the WHO Protocol, all of these companies have scrambled to respond to those allegations. Whatever the case, ISA has not been involved, and those of us who have invested in this company expect that ISA will not be imvolved in clinical trials that violate WHO protocols. That DOES NOT MEAN that ISA should not conduct trials in China. Clinical trials there would be far less costly than in North America and it would be a prudent business decision to involve 3SBIO in those trials - provided that ISA has assurances that 3SBIO will follow WHO guidelines.