Tobacco giant Philip Morris plans plant flu vaccine for China

Tobacco giant Philip Morris plans plant flu vaccine for China











A Canadian company has joined
forces with cigarette giant Philip Morris in an unusual project to sell
flu vaccine to the huge Chinese market, a potentially major step forward
for the controversial science of producing medicines in plants.

Medicago Inc. said Tuesday it is licensing its system for making
vaccine in tobacco to Philip Morris Products SA, which will develop,
test and, it hopes, market the products in China, where it already sells
a much different item — Marlboro cigarettes.

It brings the innovative harvest of “molecular farming” a little
closer to treating patients after years of research-funding problems,
failed startups and warnings about medicine-producing plants
accidentally contaminating food crops.



<blockquote class="npPullquote">We now have a foothold in China with a very large Fortune-100 company at our side . . . This is not small
</blockquote>
Medicago has received funding or investment in recent years from the
U.S. Defence Department, France’s Genpole and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma
Corp. of Japan, with trials underway of both its pandemic and seasonal
flu vaccines.

The deal with Philip Morris is a gateway into a largely untapped
market for vaccines that is expected to grow ten-fold in the world’s
largest nation over the coming years, said Andy Sheldon, Medicago’s
chief executive.




Source:-
http://business.financialpost.com/2012/09/25/tobacco-giant-philip-morris-plans-plant-flu-vaccine-for-china/