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Forget Pork

Pigs Can Generate Multi Million Revenue from Cosmetics and Biomedicals

Pigs Can Generate Multi Million Revenue from Cosmetics and Biomedicals

Source:Kuo-Tai Liu

Pigs can provide much more than just schnitzel and bratwurst. In fact, nearly every part of a pig can be used: Pig skin is used for cosmetic injections, pig bile is found in shampoo, and pig cornea transplants can help humans regain their eyesight. Yet, in the current controversy over the imports of U.S. pork containing the feed additive ractopamine, this lucrative side of pig farming has been overlooked.

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Pigs Can Generate Multi Million Revenue from Cosmetics and Biomedicals

By Kuo-chen Lu
From CommonWealth Magazine (vol. 707 )

Acro Biomedical Co. Ltd., a biotech company based in the Luzhu Science Park in southern Taiwan, is preparing a clinical trial for the transplantation of pig corneas into humans, which will go ahead as soon as Tri-Service General Hospital in Taipei has matched patients. Should the trial be successful, patients with corneal damage will no longer have to wait in line until a human donor is found. Instead, pigs could help humans regain their eyesight. 

pigs have always been a food source for humans. But thanks to advances in biotechnology, these livestock animals can now also be used as donors to harvest medical materials to restore human organs, thus generating impressive economic value.

“More than one quarter of a pig is not being used, becoming waste. But can you believe that you could generate value worth NT$300 million if you took these discarded parts and put them to good use?” asks Charles Huang, the former chairman of Taisugar Corporation and now chairman of the Taiwan Circular Economy Network. Taisugar, Taiwan’s largest pig farming enterprise, has developed a pig bile extract that is used in shampoos because it gives dark hair a good shine.

How can one pig be worth NT$300 million? Acro Biomedical Chairman Hsieh Dar-jen has obtained a Ph.D. in cell molecular biology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He notes that, aside from pork, pig skin, pig bone and heart valves have already been commercialized and approved as restorative materials for humans.

The Hottest Material in Aesthetic Medicine: Pig Skin

Presently, the most valuable pig derivative is pig skin – each pig yields about four kilograms of skin. Using extraction, around 200 liters of collagen implant can be obtained. “Just one injection makes you look 20 years younger, and the effect can last up to one and a half years. However, the asking price is quite high; one 35ml injection costs NT$60,000. From one pig, you can derive a maximum of 17,000 injections, which means an output value of more than NT$1 billion,” explains Hsieh.  

The collagen injections are being touted as a tissue repair substance that can reduce wrinkles and smoothen rough skin for a radiant complexion. In the aesthetic medicine sector in China, collagen implants are all the craze, and clinics are being swamped by beauty-conscious customers despite the steep price. In Taiwan, aside from Acro Biomedical, Sunmax Biotechnology Co. Ltd. in the Tainan Science Park is also producing injectable collagen fillers.

Sunmax’ secret are pigs that meet the standards for specific-pathogen-free (SPF) laboratory animals which were bred in cooperation with the Agricultural Technology Research Institute (ATRI). Sunmax uses such SPF pigs to extract its collagen implants, generating annual revenue worth NT$594 million and a gross margin of 88.73 percent. Presently, the company is the largest supplier of medical-grade collagen to China.

More Compatible with Humans

Aside from aesthetic medicine, pig skin can also be used to produce wound dressings and artificial skin. When 16 people sustained severe burns in a gas explosion in a small eatery in Kaohsiung in 2018, Acro Biomedical provided 150 pieces of wound dressing derived from pig skin to Kaohsiung Medical University to treat the victims. 

As Hsieh explains, pig collagen does not trigger the recipient’s immune system and therefore does not cause rejection because pig collagen and human collagen are virtually genetically identical. 

But it’s not just pig skin that can be used in humans; pig bones can also serve as a source of tissue for repairs in humans. Patients with oral cavity cancer, for instance, often lose a large part of their jawbone when surgery is required. In the past, reconstruction to replace the missing jawbone was usually done by repeatedly grafting small amounts of bone from the patient’s lower leg, an arduous process. But now pig cartilage can be used to replace jawbone or facial bone, or to treat patients whose knee cartilage is injured or has been removed. To that aim, pig cartilage is ground up and then pieced together as needed.

Heart valves from pigs have already been used to replace valves in humans for more than four decades. While people who receive a mechanical valve need to take anti-clotting medication for the rest of their lives to ensure that the valve works properly, this is usually not necessary for tissue valves. However, the tissue valves from pigs used for transplants in Taiwan are mainly sourced from the United States.

Why choose pigs and not primates that are much more closely related to humans as donor animals? Hsieh points out that pig organs are about the same size as human organs, and since pig tissue resembles human tissue, the risk of rejection is low. Also, since pig-to-human transplants occur across species (also known as xenotransplantation), virus transmission is believed to be less likely. In contrast, there are many viruses that occur both in primates and in humans, which would make such transplant riskier.

Cornea, Ureter Transplants Possible

Pigs can serve as donor animals for many purposes. Acro Biomedical, which already makes high profits from its products for aesthetic medicine, has set its sights even higher. In the long term, the company hopes to focus on cross-species organ regeneration and transplantation, with corneal transplants being the first step.

In 2016, Acro Biomedical collaborated with the ophthalmology department of Chi Mei Hospital in Tainan for the world’s first successful corneal transplant from a pig to a chihuahua. After the transplantation, the small dog, which had been completely blind in the right eye, regained its eyesight in just one month and did not experience any adverse reaction to the pig tissue. 

Following this success, the company licensed its technology to Australian biotech company Oculus Biomed for launching experimental use in humans in Australia, which means that corneal transplants from pig to humans might be around the corner. 

Now Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare has given the green light for a clinical trial at the Tri-Service Hospital in Taipei with Acro Biomedical’s product. As soon as patient recruitment and matching is complete, porcine corneal transplants in humans will be conducted.

Around the world, such transplants are becoming popular. China had already reported a pig-to-human transplantation in 2016. A cornea typically sells for NT$20,000. Given that in China alone four million people need corneal transplants, and about 10 million people worldwide, there is huge demand for such xenografts.

Of course, it is not as simple as harvesting a pig cornea and transplanting it directly into the human eye. As Hsieh explains, the porcine cornea must be bioengineered to remove anything that could trigger adverse effects, rejection, or infection while maintaining its original functions. This entails major technical challenges. 

If these challenges can be overcome, similar methods could be used to prepare tissue and organs harvested from pigs such as corneas, blood vessels, nerves, urinary bladders, hearts, kidneys, ureters, livers and pancreases to replace tissue and organs in humans. Substance abuse, for instance, can cause urinary tract dysfunction. By replacing affected ureters with porcine ureters, patients could be spared from having to wear diapers for the rest of their lives.

High Risk, High Price, Long Wait for Approval

Pigs can serve as donor animals. Yet the way ahead before pig-to-human transplants become common is still challenging. 

It took more than five years and NT$20 million in investment before clinical trials for porcine cornea transplants could be launched. For approval in the United States, clinical trials must be conducted there, which means a cost of US$50,000 per patient. Assuming 300 clinical trials were needed, this would amount to a total cost of US$15 million, a substantial amount for biotech startups.

And then there are long waits.

Collagen implants, for instance, seem to be no big deal, but since they are inserted into the human body, they are categorized as Class III devices, which includes those with the greatest risk. Class III devices are therefore subject to strict regulation. Hsieh points out that it can take more than 10 years and NT$200 million in funding from research and development to trials and eventual approval for bringing a new product to market. Not all companies have the resources that would enable them to stay afloat during such a long and costly period. 

Still, none of these issues seem to play a role in the current debate over the easing of import restrictions on American pork.

Instead of trying to contain imports of pork from the United States by producing pork products at an ever lower cost, Taiwan’s pig farmers should ask themselves: How can I move up the value chain by raising pigs for more than just food?


Have you read?
♦ Is Taiwan’s Pork Industry Up to the U.S. Challenge?
♦ Taiwan’s Secret Weapon against Pork Imports

Translated by Susanne Ganz
Edited by TC Lin
Uploaded by Penny Chiang

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