Bayer opens new pilot facility to process drug actives grown in tobacco plants

Bayer and its subsidiary Icon Genetics have together developed a new production process that can be used to produce biotech drugs in tobacco plants. The company has also opened a new pilot production facility for the therapeutic proteins creating 11 new jobs in Halle.

Bayer acquired Icon Genetics in 2006, and since then has invested over Euro 10m in Halle in the study of plant-made pharmaceuticals. At Icon Genetics in the Halle Biocenter, 26 people are currently employed in research into and the development of biotech active substances produced in plants. These substances could be used, for example, to treat cancer or as a vaccine against influenza.

"This project is intended to improve our chances of finding new therapies for life-threatening diseases by using drugs obtained with biotechnological methods," said Dr Wolfgang Plischke, member of the Bayer Board of Management. "There are many types of tumour disease which have to be treated individually with specific active substances. The objective is to use this process to produce an individual drug for each patient."

Some 15% of all medicines are produced using biotechnology, and as many as one in four new drug products is a biopharmaceutical whose active ingredient is produced in bioreactors using bacteria, brewer's yeast and insect or hamster cells, for example. These products, and cancer treatments in particular, are expected to account for a growing share of the market, the company says. The Bayer company involved in this project in a lead capacity is Bayer Innovation GmbH.

Production of "personalised medicines" using biotechnology processes is seen by Bayer as an especially important area. Proteins produced in tobacco plants can be obtained rapidly and in high yields, and this offers prospects for therapies that have previously been impracticable because of the length of time taken to produce them or their economic viability.

Before the tobacco plant can start producing a pharmaceutical active ingredient, the blueprint for the relevant drug product has to be transported into the plant with the aid of agrobacteria. The plant is placed in a bath containing a bacterial solution specific to the plant. A vacuum process enables the plant to take up the bacterial solution through its pores. The solution is distributed throughout the tobacco plant and its genetic information passes into the plant's cells. The plant then uses the blueprint introduced in this way to produce the active ingredient.

The first protein produced in the pilot plant in Halle, which will be a candidate for clinical development, is a patient-specific antibody vaccine for the therapy of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). NHL is a malignant disorder affecting the lymphatic system. Phase I clinical testing is scheduled to begin in 2009.

"This facility for the production of clinical trial supplies is an important step towards using our technology for the benefit of patients," said Professor Yuri Gleba, md and founder of Icon Genetics.