The miracle cure for the farming sector won’t be found in growing high-value pharmaceutical crops, says one drug manufacturer.
Dow AgroSciences has figured out a way to produce plant-made vaccines in the laboratory instead of the field, a discovery that will likely quash hopes of what was expected to be a lucrative niche market for growers of genetically modified crops.
The company’s patented Concert Plant-Cell-Produced System uses cells instead of whole plants to produce vaccines.
Butch Mercer, global business leader for animal health at Dow AgroSciences, said within the next several years other biotechnology companies producing plant-made drugs will probably follow their lead and shift toward this type of bio-contained system.
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Moving the production of plant proteins used in vaccines from the field to the lab makes sense because it eliminates GM contamination issues associated with the outcrossing of plants.
At the same time it eliminates the opportunity for farmers to participate in the high-value pharmaceutical industry.
“At the end of the day we do not see it as being an agronomic value in terms of making money off the growth of the protein,” said Mercer.
A decade ago the same company was telling Canadian canola farmers that their future was in specialized GM crops harvested for valuable proteins for the industrial and pharmaceutical industries.
“Canola as it exists today, we don’t think will be around five to seven years from now,” David Dzisiak, head of Dow’s biotechnology division, said in a 1995 Western Producer article.
He went on to tell how the specialty canolas would bring big value into the western Canadian farm economy.
Mercer acknowledged the original concept for the plant-made drugs industry included grower participation, but concerns over pharmaceutical crops contaminating food crops chased the biotechnology companies indoors.
However, in the long run the technology will still provide benefits to farmers.
“Where we do see it being valuable to the agricultural community is going to be the quality of the products that are produced in the system as time moves forward.”
Dow’s technology will be used to create new vaccines for the animal health industry with target animals including poultry, horses, cattle, swine, cats and dogs.
On Jan. 31, 2006, the company received regulatory approval from the United States Department of Agriculture for a vaccine for the poultry industry.
“This represents the world’s first regulatory approval of a plant-made vaccine,” said Mercer.
Dow said this regulatory milestone will pave the way for other helpful drugs because plants produce stable proteins that can expand the list of available vaccines for the livestock sector.
“The animals respond to them very well,” said Mercer.
The initial approval is for a vaccine for Newcastle disease, a highly contagious viral illness of domestic poultry and other birds.
Dow is also developing an avian influenza vaccine, a West Nile vaccine for horses, a treatment for canine diabetes and is working on other animal health issues.
“We’re predicting that by the end of the decade we’ll have several products on the marketplace,” said Mercer.
