Bayer: Science For A Better Life - research - Plant-made Pharmaceuticals

Plants produce pharmaceutical active ingredients

Health-bringing tobacco

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Alternatively, the active substance genes can be implanted into individual tobacco cells which then grow into whole plants.

An increasing number of new medicines today are what are termed biopharmaceuticals –drug products whose active ingredients were produced by biological systems. Demand for such active substances is growing steadily. That’s why Icon Genetics, a subsidiary of Bayer Innovation GmbH, focuses on promoting the use of tobacco plants to produce pharmaceuticals.

Plants as protein bioreactors

Of all things, it is tobacco plants – which generally have a reputation as being dangerous to health – from which large quantities of proteins can be produced quickly, easy, safely and cheaply. Even antibodies, which perform important functions in the human immune system, can now be produced in tobacco plants. It might still take up to ten years before marketing authorization is finally granted for such medicines, however. The following article reveals how the tobacco plant’s image could be transformed into that of a protein biofactory.

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