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News Release
MYCOGEN GRANTS NON-EXCLUSIVE LICENSE TO AXIS GENETICS FOR HUMAN HEALTH APPLICATIONS OF EDIBLE VACCINE TECHNOLOGY
3/9/1998 SAN DIEGO, Calif. - Mycogen Corporation has granted a non-exclusive license to Axis Genetics PLC, Brabraham, Cambridge, U.K., for human health applications of technology to genetically alter plants to produce and deliver edible vaccines.
In 1997, co-inventors Roy Curtiss III, Ph.D., of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., and Guy Cardineau, Ph.D., of Mycogen, were awarded a series of broad U.S. and foreign patents covering plant-based edible vaccine technology. Curtis and Cardineau assigned those patents to the university under an agreement through which Mycogen received exclusive commercial rights for human and animal health. Mycogen also holds a number of patents covering methods of using viral vectors to introduce new genetic traits into plants as well as subgenomic promoters and other biotechnology "tools."
In return for the right to use that technology to develop plant-based vaccines, Axis will pay annual license fees, commencing immediately, plus royalties upon commercialization of edible vaccine products. A portion of those fees and royalties will be paid to Washington University under the terms of Mycogen's license agreement with the university.
Axis CEO Iain Cubitt said that the company expects to enter its first plant-based vaccine candidates into Phase I clinical trials by the year 2000.
Mycogen's president, Carl Eibl, said that Mycogen intends to pursue animal health applications on its own or through alliances with third parties. Researchers believe that feed grains engineered to produce disease antigens can be used in place of more expensive vaccine injections and antibiotic treatments for animal health, and that edible vaccines could also reduce food safety problems caused by bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella and campylobacter.
Scientists at several universities and research institutes are conducting tests in which mice are fed foods such as potatoes, tomatoes or alfalfa sprouts that have been genetically altered to produce antigens that elicit an immune response to diseases such as hepatitis B, cholera and travelers' diarrhea. A team of researchers from the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University and the University of Maryland Medical School's Center for Vaccine Development currently is conducting the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved human trials, using potatoes altered to produce an immune response to E. coli, a bacterial infection that causes diarrheal diseases.
"Biotechnology is giving us many powerful tools that are transforming health care and food production," Eibl said. "Human and animal vaccines are a multi-billion dollar industry, and we and others believe that this technology will contribute significantly to efforts to improve world health and food safety."
Mycogen is a diversified agribusiness and biotechnology company that develops and markets seeds and value-added traits for genetically enhanced crops and provides crop protection products and services. Mycogen is a publicly held company (Nasdaq: MYCO) that is majority owned by Dow AgroSciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW). This news release contains forward-looking statements. Various factors could cause actual results to vary significantly from management's expectations. These include the impact of weather on production and sales, actions by competitors and regulatory agencies, intellectual property positions, commodity prices, fluctuations in crop acreage and the effectiveness of internal expense controls.
For more information about Mycogen, please call 1-888-SEE-MYCO (1-888-733-6926) or visit Mycogen's website at www.mycogen.com.
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