By Shawn Lawrence
Innovator
Medicago Fighting the flu with tobacco
Researchers around the world continue their scramble to find new ways to develop anti-flu drugs, vaccines and provide better flu surveillance. Dealing with a foe that has the ability to mutate, evolve, spread and evade immunity, whether it’s common strains of influenza, or more fatal forms of infectious disease, vaccine developers are under constant pressure to ensure there’s enough vaccine available for public consumption should an outbreak occur.
The situation is all the more critical when one considers that the wheels are already in motion for a pandemic to hit. Our governments are preparing for it, many companies have pandemic plans in place just in case, and concerns of how hard the next one will hit or its severity are ever present. Having spent the better part of 25 years working in vaccine development both in the private sector, and as a consultant in formulating the Canadian pandemic plan used in 2009 during the H1N1 outbreak, Andy Sheldon understands the pressing need for new technologies to fight the flu. Today he heads up Medicago Inc., a Canadian biotech company that may offer new hope in the race to produce vaccines more quickly, more cheaply and with higher yields. Hired in 2003 as president and CEO, and charged with the task of transforming the company from research outfit into a commercially viable vaccine manufacturer, he’s very close to accomplishing his task. And the prospects for future growth continue to excite Sheldon, as does solving some of the world’s most pressing infectious disease dilemmas. Medicago was founded in 1999 by current chief scientific officer Louis P. Vezina and Francois Arcand, with the company’s initial IP spurred by investment from Agriculture Canada. “The idea from the start for Medicago was to use plants as a tool to create pharmaceuticals, vaccines and biologics,” says Sheldon. While the broader focus hasn’t changed, the company has made serious inroads on the vaccine development side beginning with the development of therapeutic proteins for such infectious diseases as H5N1 and seasonal influenza. “Compared with traditional egg-based and cell production systems, plants are uniquely capable of efficient protein expression at very high yields, and as such we believe we have the ability to produce vaccines quickly and cheaply using plants,” says Sheldon. The company’s technology is unique in that it relies on the use of tobacco leaves to produce vaccines. The the tobacco plants are an Australian breed called Nicotiana benthamiana. “We use its leaves as a key part of a process which results in the production of what we call virus-like particles, or VLPs,” explains Sheldon. Virus-like particles simply put, look like the virus but don’t have any genetic material, and because they look the virus, they have the ability to stimulate immune pathways within a host to combat the virus. 16 BIOTECHNOLOGY FOCUS MAY 2012
Medicago researchers working with Nicotiana benthamiana tobacco plants. Photos courtesy of Medicago
