Dolly company reviews US move

09 April 1999

Dolly company reviews US move

THE Edinburgh-based biotechnology company famous for cloning Dolly the sheep is to decide whether to locate more development in the US or stay in Scotland.

PPL Therapeutics will make a decision in the next few weeks whether to develop of a £45m manufacturing plant in Virginia.

The plant would be used to process its most advanced product – alpha-1-antitrypsin, or AAT – a human protein that could be used to treat cystic fibrosis.

The protein is produced by a flock of genetically-modified sheep reared by PPL in New Zealand.

But regulatory approval to manufacture AAT from the US Food and Drugs Administration is not expected until the end of 2001.

• Financial Times 09/04/99 page 10