Bayer opens plant-made drugs facility

Germany's Bayer and its subsidiary Icon Genetics have developed a production process that can be used to make biotechnology drugs in tobacco plants. A new production facility that uses this process was inaugurated on June 16 in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt.

The pilot plant has created 11 new jobs for qualified experts, most of whom come from the German region. Bayer acquired Icon Genetics in 2006, and since then has invested over 10.0 million euros ($15.4 million) in Halle in the study of plant-made pharmaceuticals.

In the future, the active substances produced in the tobacco plants could be used to develop new approaches to the therapy and prevention of diseases for which the current medical options are not satisfactory, Bayer noted. Wolfgang Plischke, a board member of Bayer AG, explained that "not all cancers are the same. There are many types of tumor disease which have to be treated individually with specific active substances. The objective is to use this process to produce an individual drug for each patient." This future-oriented technology combines Bayer's expertise in pharmaceutical research with its knowledge of plant genetics and biotechnology, the firm noted.