Bio-ethics

The use of human biological samples, including solid tissue, sub-cellular fractions and their derivatives, is essential for any biopharmaceutical company.

UCB fully complies with the legal and regulatory requirements governing the ethical sourcing of human tissues and ensures that donated human biological samples are handled in a responsible and ethical manner.

The use of human tissue, blood samples, and related materials in drug discovery plays a valuable role in helping scientists predict a potential drug’s efficacy and safety as well as its possible side effects and interactions with other drugs. UCB employees can volunteer to give blood for research purposes coordinated by the occupational health advisor.

In line with our goal of reducing our use of human tissue, UCB is continuously looking for promising alternatives. For example, human liver cells (hepatocytes) are well known as the gold-standard assay for testing the metabolic pathway and potential interaction with other drugs, as well as the cyto-toxic properties of new drugs.

To find alternatives, UCB is currently involved in a multi-centre project, named Valostem, funded by the Walloon Government Belgium. The project’s main purpose is to validate the use of two new cell lines, derived from liver stem cells and umbilical cord matrix stem cells, as alternatives to human hepatocytes.

Bio-ethics committees in place

A bio-ethics committee will be installed on the Braine-l’Alleud research site (Belgium) in 2011, following the example of our Slough site (U.K.) since 2009. Such committee requires the accreditations by competent national authorities. The aim of a bio-ethics committee is to develop and implement policies, consent forms, standard operating procedures for import/export, storage, tracking and disposal of human tissues.