China Genomics Giant Drops Plans for Gene-Edited Pets

China’s largest BGI gene test company is going public. But hold the bacon.

Starting this week, investors should be able to buy shares in BGI, China’s largest genomics company, as it completes a $251 million initial public offering. But if you were hoping to get your hands on a $1,400 pint-size pig created with gene editing, you’ll have to wait. Perhaps indefinitely.

BGI made headlines around the world in September 2015 when employees said at the Shenzhen International Biotech Leaders Summit that they intended to sell half-sized Bama pigs and inaugurate a market for gene-edited pets available in custom colors and sizes.

But BGI officials now say they won’t be marketing the pigs to consumers at all. “We have no plans to sell micropigs,” Yong Li, a key member of BGI’s animal science program, told MIT Technology Review.

Exactly why the plan got scrapped remains murky. But distracting press coverage, negative public sentiment in China around GMOs, and uncertainty over how China plans to regulate gene-modified animals all seem to have played a role.

Gene editing is a swift way to make surgical changes to animal embryos, often disabling genes or revising DNA to import into a breed traits that are found in other members of the same species. China in particular has raced ahead with the technology, generating long-haired goats and super-muscular dogs in its labs.

Some scientists have also hoped that sales of gene-edited animals, for food or other uses, wouldn’t be regulated. That is because the technology doesn’t involve introducing DNA from one species into another.