Tissue Therapies to repeat animal trial

Brisbane biotech Tissue Therapies (ASX:TIS) will repeat an animal trial designed to gather data to optimise its wound treatment VitroGro for human clinical trials following independent review of the results.

"The fluid that the protein sits in was too acid which prevented the VitroGro protein complex from forming, therefore it didn't give us any statistically significant results," said Tissue Therapies chief executive Dr Steven Mercer. "This will not effect the timetable for the commencement of the clinical paediatric burns trial in mid 2006 at the Stuart Pegg Paediatric Burns Centre at the Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane.

"It is a distraction, but the new trial will be shorter and cheaper than the first one - we already have the grant funding for it via QUT. It is also valuable to learn these things now rather than in clinical trials," he said.

The new trial protocol and specifications for VitroGro and associated additives have already been modified to prevent a recurrence of similar issues and to ensure the accuracy of future VitroGro trials.

Mercer indicated the net cost of the additional trial would be at most $90,000. The new trial will also feature more sophisticated quality control procedures, an enhanced dataset for the human trial and significantly would also use fully recombinant (synthetic) GMP-grade VitroGro components that are planned for use in the human trial.