Health Protection Agency's Partner Launches Decontamination Product For Surgical Instruments, UK

Main Category: CJD / vCJD / Mad Cow Disease
Article Date: 30 Mar 2006 - 0:00 PDT

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An idea originally conceived by Health Protection Agency scientists has been developed into a commercial product, independently certified for use by a European Community Notified Body (CE Marked) and launched on to the market by the Agency's partners, Genencor International.

The product is an enzyme, trade name Prionzyme™, that is able to degrade prion proteins generally agreed to cause Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD).

Genencor has today announced that it will initially launch Prionzyme™ in the EU for the decontamination of surgical instruments that have been used for a number of invasive surgical procedures related to the central nervous system, eyes and tonsils. This is because these tissues have been identified as ones in which prions are known to accumulate.

Since prion proteins are known to be capable of surviving the conditions used to sterilise surgical instruments, there is the possibility that some surgical procedures could act as a route of transmission for these diseases. Laboratory studies have demonstrated that the new enzyme substantially inactivates prions via a method that could be widely adopted within hospital sterile service departments.

Sir William Stewart, Chairman of the Health Protection Agency said: "Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease can be a devastating disease and the prions, the associated agents, are an enigma. The fact that we have developed a system which can destroy prions and can be widely applied in hospitals is an important breakthrough. It also means that the safe disposal of previously contaminated instruments should no longer be a problem."

Whilst the epidemic of cases of vCJD previously predicted has fortunately not materialised (to date there have been 154 definite or probable deaths from vCJD1), it has been recognised that there may be a background level of the disease incubating in the population. The Department of Health and Health Protection Agency are undertaking studies to quantify this2.

Therefore, in addition to a number of public health procedures already implemented by the Department of Health and the National Blood Service, the introduction of Prionzyme™ should further reduce the potential risk for infection with vCJD from such surgical procedures.

Commenting on the product launch Professor Pat Troop, Chief Executive of the Health Protection Agency said: "This is the culmination of a very productive partnership between the Agency and Genencor International that has enabled us to take our research from the laboratory and develop it into a product that is designed to deliver a much-needed public health benefit."

More information on Genencor International can be found at : genencor.com

References

1. Figure reported by National CJD Surveillance Unit : cjd.ed.ac.uk

2. Further information on these programmes can be found on the Agency's CJD Webpages: hpa.org.uk/infections/topics_az/cjd/menu.htm

Health Protection Agency