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News Release
MYCOGEN OBTAINS HUMAN AND ANIMAL HEALTH RIGHTS FOR GENETICALLY ALTERED PLANTS THAT PRODUCE EDIBLE VACCINES
11/3/1997 SAN DIEGO, Calif. - Mycogen Corporation has entered into license agreements with Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., for exclusive commercial rights to human and animal health applications of technology to genetically alter plants to produce and deliver edible vaccines.
The licenses grant Mycogen exclusive rights under broad patents awarded to co-inventors Roy Curtiss III, Ph.D., of Washington University and Guy Cardineau, Ph.D., of Mycogen, who assigned the patents to the university. 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 when the antigens are recognized by immune system "effector sites" that line the digestive tract.
Although vaccines exist for these and many other diseases, high costs to produce and administer them and logistical barriers such as transportation and refrigeration limit access to them, particularly in the developing world, where other conditions contribute to the spread of disease and medical care often is limited or unavailable. The World Health Organization estimates that over 12 million children under the age of five die each year from infectious disease, at least 2 million of whom could be saved by vaccines already on the market.
Charles J. Arntzen, Ph.D., president and CEO of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, another pioneer in plant-based vaccine research, leads a team that obtained U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval earlier this year for the first human clinical trials of plant-based vaccines.
"Our goal is to provide oral vaccinations for pennies a dose that can cost several dollars or more to administer by other means," Arntzen said. "Delivering immunizations through foods, such as bananas, that can be grown locally and don't need to be cooked also would make such vaccines much more accessible."
Arntzen predicts that the technology also will be used to immunize animals and solve food safety problems caused by bacteria such as E. coli, salmonella and campylobacter that infect poultry and livestock, contaminate meat and sicken humans.
"By feeding chickens and livestock grain such as corn, soybeans or sorghum that have been altered to produce antigens for bacteria or viruses, we could dramatically reduce the volume of these infectious agents in the food supply," he said. "The antigens exist, and we are developing prototype products to deliver them through plants. It's just a matter of time and investment in development."
Mycogen's president, Carl Eibl, said that the company is negotiating a sub-license through which it will grant human health rights under the Curtiss/Cardineau patents to a third party, but intends to pursue animal health applications on its own or through an alliance with another company.
"This is another example of the powerful tools biotechnology is giving us to transform agriculture by producing crops more efficiently and making them more valuable," 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."
The patents are the result of a scientific relationship that dates back to the late 1970s, when Cardineau was a graduate student at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, under Curtiss, a noted researcher in bacterial molecular biology, pathogenic organisms and vaccines. Later, Curtiss was a scientific advisor to a plant biotechnology company that employed Cardineau as a molecular biologist, and the two hit on the idea of genetically engineering plants to become edible vaccines. After further study and experiments, they filed a patent application in 1988, and have continued to collaborate. Curtiss moved to Washington University in 1983, and Cardineau joined Mycogen in 1992.
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 DowElanco, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW). The forward-looking statements in this news release are based on projections and estimates regarding the economy and the seed and crop protection industries. 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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