Transcript Biopharming - University of Canterbury

Biopharming
Informed risk assessment
Joanna Goven
Talking Biotechnology, Wellington, 29 Nov-2 Dec 2005
Project home and funding
 Part of the FRST-funded Constructive
Conversations project (2003-2008)
 PI:
Rosemary DuPlessis (2003-2005)
Joanna Goven (2006-2008)
 Animal biopharming MA began March 05
 Some other project research began as of July
05
 Most will begin Jan 06
 Runs until mid-2008
What is biopharming?
Expansive definition: growing plants and animals
as vehicles (‘bioreactors’) to produce:
 Substances to be used in the medical treatment of
humans [and other animals?]
 This could be non-GM (bioprospecting), but most
is GM
 Extracted from (rH lactoferrin) or delivered by
(vaccine bananas) the plant or animal
 Can include organs for (xeno-)transplantation
 Food that offers ‘extra’ health benefits (‘functional
food’)
 Distinction is blurry (‘health supplement’)
Why biopharming?
Heralded by biotech industry and associated scientists as:
 Moneymaker (get some of those pharma $)
 Rests on assumption that using plants and
animals as bioreactors will prove to be cheaper
than lab-based production
‘Once commercial-scale expression is established in transgenic
plants or animals, scaling up production is as simple as
planting more crops or breeding more animals. …“If Enbrel
were produced in corn, [Immunex] could have just planted
more acres, which would have been much less expensive than
building new, larger facilities”’
‘Thomas Newberry, vice president of Corporate
Communications at GTC Biotherapeutics suggests that
establishing a commercial production herd of the company’s
transgenic goats could be done at around a tenth of the cost of
building a commercial cell-culture facility, with companies able
to assess market demand—and scale-up production
appropriately—with each new breeding cycle.’
Why biopharming?
Heralded by biotech industry and associated scientists as:
 Moneymaker (get some of those pharma $)
 Rests on assumption that using plants and
animals as bioreactors will prove to be cheaper
than lab-based production
 Overcoming public resistance to GM crops
 Belief that resistance is due to ‘no consumer
benefit’ of ‘first-generation’ GM crops
 Belief that ‘cheaper’ drug production will be seen
as consumer benefit
Why biopharming?
Heralded by biotech industry and associated scientists as:
 Moneymaker (get some of those pharma $)
 Rests on assumption that using plants and
animals as bioreactors will prove to be cheaper
than lab-based production
 Overcoming public resistance to GM crops
 Belief that resistance is due to ‘no consumer
benefit’ of ‘first-generation’ GM crops
 Belief that ‘cheaper’ drug production will be seen
as consumer benefit
 Humanitarian
 Vehicle to deliver medicine and extra-nutritious
foods to 3rd world
Why biopharming?
Heralded in NZ as the way forward:
“There has been slow progress in agricultural
biotechnology due to resistance to genetically modified
seeds and biopesticides. Highest returns are likely to be
in the use of crops in non-food applications such as
pharmaceuticals.” –NZTE, 200?
“The development of transgenic animals for the
production of pharmaceuticals …is a logical outgrowth of
the country’s outstanding animal health status and vast
experience in breeding… The use of transgenic animals
to generate large amounts of human-protein-based
drugs is a natural fit for New Zealand…The development
of transgenic cattle represents an enormous opportunity
for New Zealand.” –rept commissioned for Industry NZ, 2003
Why biopharming?
Definitely on the agendas of CRIs and science
entrepreneurs in NZ, e.g.,
 PPL sheep
 AgResearch cows, machs I and II
 Crop and Food potatoes
The Research: Grand goal
To enable improved risk-assessment decisions
and decision-processes for 1/ plant
biopharming; 2/ animal biopharming; and 3/
nutrigenomics and functional food.
Approach
 Focused more on public’s knowledge than public’s views
or values
 Focus on importance of social practices for
understanding risk
 Social practices can be source of risk in conjunction with
the technology and can be put at risk by the technology
 Relevant social practices are widely distributed;
knowledge of those practices is widely distributed
 Most of this knowledge is not utilised in the regulatory
(risk-assessment) process
 Goal is to elicit knowledge of social practices implicated
by biopharming
‘Method’
 Scope the terrain: Where is it now and where is it
going? What is driving it? What concerns have already
been raised (here or elsewhere)?
 Identify likely concentrations of knowledge of social
practices relevant to key biopharming applications in NZ
 Develop ‘translational’ materials:


Explain socially meaningful aspects of technology briefly and
comprehensibly
Suggest how their knowledge might be relevant (not what their
knowledge is).
 In order to: Enable the interview participants to identify
the knowledge they have (and we don’t) that is relevant
to the subject (e.g., production of biopharm milk),
particularly when the subject has not yet entered the
public arena in a significant way.
Streams
 Plant biopharming
 PMPs
 Functional foods
 Animal biopharming
 Pastoral
 Aquaculture
 Marine biopharming/Māori
Multidisciplinary approach; transdisciplinary
aspirations
 Social practices
 Political-economic and cultural context
 Key biosafety issues
 Trade impacts
 Integrated transdisciplinary assessment of
social, cultural, economic and biosafety risks
associated with biopharming in the New
Zealand context
 Regulatory and governance implications
International collaboration
University of British Columbia, Centre for Applied
Ethics: Democracy, Ethics, and Genomics
Programme
 Indigenous communities’ experiences and strategies
(salmon/marine)
 Social research and public engagement on
biotechnology issues
Biopharming
Informed risk assessment