The decision of Australian national health and medical research council (NHMRC) today to lift its ban on implanting animal tissues in humans may cost New Zealand a share of its cutting-edge research into using pig cells, said a company that is conducting trials here.

Welcoming this decision Living Cell Technologies (LCT) medical director, and co-founder, Bob Elliott said today some trials of its implants for type-1 diabetics may be tested in Australia when the company needs multi-site clinical trials.

Prof Elliott predicted last night that about a year would be taken to have robust, positive results from a clinical trial at Middlemore Hospital which is implanting eight Auckland diabetics with insulin-producing pig cells

The company wraps the cells in a seaweed gel hiding them from the patient's immune system and rejected, avoiding the necessity for immunosuppressive drugs.

A promising progress was seen with its first patient, a 48-year-old man, and the second patient would be given implants next Tuesday.

In another development the company had arranged to test the safety of brain cells from piglets injected straight into the brain of primates in China to see if they can be used as a therapy for Parkinson's disease.

LCT executives have previously said they would require about 3600 pigs producing 18,000 male piglets for slaughter to treat 1200 patients.

Requiring specific ministerial approval for experimentation on chimpanzees and other primates, primate studies needs to be done outside New Zealand. Trials have already been done on a laboratory rat 'model' for Parkinson's, which improved limb function.

Prof Elliott has said the company has tried brain choroid plexus cells and liver cells and there were many other cell types that could be used.