Drug firm now says it bought 7,500 glands

THE number of deceased patients whose pituitary glands were supplied to a Danish pharmaceutical firm was three times greater than revealed earlier this week.

Novo Nordisk said yesterday it was supplied with 7,500 glands from hospitals over a 10-year period rather than the 2,500 it had earlier said it received.

A typing error in a briefing document prepared for a response to media queries was blamed for the mistake. The figure of 32 given for the number of hospitals which provided glands was correct.

Company chief science officer Dr Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen said the figures were correctly recorded in documentation the company supplied to the Dunne Inquiry, which is investigating the organ retention controversy.

Dr Thomsen said there were more adults than children among the 7,500 patients whose glands were supplied for use in the production of growth hormone Nanormon.

“There is some confusion about this. People tend to think that because it makes growth hormone, the pituitary gland is specific to children but, in fact, the vast majority donated to the company were from adults.

“Obviously people tend to pass on at a higher age, which means more deceased patients are adults but also the pituitary gland in a child is very small compared to an adult, so it produces less growth hormone.”

The practice of harvesting pituitary glands for hormone production ended in the mid-1980s when advances in biotechnology enabled scientists to make a synthetic substitute.

Prior to that, Novo Nordisk estimates it supplied the medical market in Ireland with a quantity of Nanormon sufficient to treat about 100 children a year for conditions relating to growth deficiency.

Dr Thomsen said the hospitals received a financial “contribution” of about e2 per gland “with the understanding that this would be used for a fund for buying medical books for the hospital library.”

The same arrangement was in place with all hospitals in all countries which supplied pituitary glands to the company in the same period and was restricted to pituitary glands, said Dr Thomsen.

“The only other gland we are interested in is the pancreatic gland as it produces insulin, but we take it from pigs and cattle.”

Novo Nordisk was first asked by the Dunne Inquiry to supply information in 2001 and sent its first reply in October of that year, Dr Thomsen said. No one representing the company had been asked to give verbal evidence to the inquiry.

The inquiry yesterday refused to answer any questions about the controversy.

Irish Medical Organisation president Dr James Reilly expressed concern about the piecemeal manner in which information had come to public attention. “I would prefer that the full facts were put in front of us and we would have a full and open debate,” he said.