February 7, 2006

World's first plant-made vaccine receives US approval
 

Dow AgroSciences LLC, a subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Co., announced that it has received the world's first regulatory approval for a plant-made vaccine. The vaccine was approved by the Department of Agriculture's Center for Veterinary Biologics.

The plant cell-produced technology represents a new generation of vaccines because plant cell-produced vaccines contain no components of animal origin and does not introduce dormant versions of the virus into the animal like other vaccines. Plant cell-produced vaccines use only specific fragments of a pathogen's unique genetic material to stimulate an immune response from the host, USDA said.

The system utilizes plant cells in a bio-contained environment to produce vaccines, which is safer than vaccines produced from whole plants, the company said. 

The company is now concentrating its efforts on developing new plant-made vaccines. Possible target animals include poultry, swine and cattle. Spokesperson Robyn Heine said work is currently underway on the West Nile virus in horses, avian influenza in poultry and pneumonia in cattle.

Furthermore, USDA announced it has issued a license to Dow AgroSciences for a vaccine to protect chickens from illness caused by the Newcastle disease virus (NDV).

According to USDA, the chicken vaccine is the first fully licensed plant cell-produced vaccine for animals in the US.  The vaccine contains the major immunogenic protein of NDV and does not contain any whole NDV, live or killed. A protective immune response is triggered once the chicken's cells take up the protein in the vaccine, USDA said.