Hong Kong Technology Venture Company Limited revealed the project on Monday in its annual results, and said it believed the research to be a world first that could be applied to organ transplants and potentially “extending human lifespan”.
“The related experiments have been conducted in strict compliance with local government regulations and the standards of laboratory animal ethics,” a spokeswoman told the South China Morning Post on Wednesday.
“The animals involved in the studies are pigs and sheep, species that are commonly used in scientific research on organ transplantation.
“We noted that there are media reports with the insertion of pictures of experiments with cats, dogs and rabbits, and these are misrepresentations that are not related to the subject life science project.”
The company said the project had run for four years, adding that the experiments were conducted outside Hong Kong. It stopped short of revealing the exact location.
