Feb 10, 2006

Dow Registers Plant-Made VaccineSource: Dow AgroSciences LLC

Dow AgroSciences LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, recently announced that it has received the world’s first regulatory approval for a plant-made vaccine from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Center for Veterinary Biologics.

“With this achievement Dow AgroSciences is revolutionizing the field of preventative medicine with plant-cell-produced vaccines,” said Butch Mercer, Dow AgroSciences’ global business leader for Animal Health.

The Dow AgroSciences Concert Plant-Cell-Produced System represents a new category of plant-made vaccines. This technology utilizes plant cells instead of whole plants in a secure, bio-contained environment to produce vaccines. Because of this bio-contained production system, concerns and challenges associated with making vaccines in whole plants or food crops are eliminated.

The Concert Plant-Cell-Produced System uses only the necessary parts of the disease-causing agent to stimulate immunity in a manufacturing process that is totally free of animal components.

According to John Cuffe, Dow AgroSciences’ R&D leader for Animal Health, “This approval is a perfect example of how biotechnology is advancing science by creating a new category of vaccines that is both safe and effective.”

This achievement was the result of effective collaborations with organizations and institutions including Washington University, Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Benchmark Biolabs, Inc., and The Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University.