Growing Insulin

McLuhanesque writes "The Globe and Mail reports that a Calgary biotech firm has developed a process to turn genetically modified safflower oil into human insulin in commercial quantities. The process reduces capital costs by 70% and product cost by 40%. 'SemBioSys says it can make more than one kilogram of human insulin per acre of safflower production. That amount could treat 2,500 diabetic patients for one year and, in turn, meet the world's total projected insulin demand in 2010 with less than 16,000 acres of safflower production.'"

Re:Tollerance Build up

[Temkin]

Take a look at the research being done on Retinol binding proteins. Apparently, there's some kind of relationship between RBP's and insulin resistance.

Temkin

Cross contamination

[fermion]

Despite what the labs says, we have seen probable cases of cross contamination between licensed seeds and unlicensed seeds. This has lead to hybrid plant, which are not necessarily a problem, and harassment of farmer who have been found in possession of the seeds, harassment because the guilt is assumed. So one wonders what will happen when 16000 acres of this stuff planted around the world. If cross contamination does occur, will the safe for average human consumption? Will the farmer's be harrased if the licensed seeds or plants are on thier properties?

Certainly like GM food, GM plant for medicine production is a great advancement. I just worry about these things getting into the wild, since the GM companies have had such a devil may care attitude in the past. Despite the statement of work for the public good, profits never seem to be cut in a effort to make the product safer, or the distribution widespread.

The article is scant on details

[mbessey]

Not much technical detail at all in the article, but from previous articles on splicing human genes into animals and plants, I gather that the real advantage of this technique is that, if it's done right, the plant or animal concentrates the product in one place for you (the seeds, in this case).

Compared to a big churning vat of E. Coli, their food, and their waste products, it's easier to use something like an impeller or centrifuge to separate out bulk quantities of insulin-laced oil from a plant, and then purify it from there.

Also, those same fermenters that are growing insulin currently are also a great breeding ground for other bacteria, molds, and yeasts in the environment. I'm given to understand that keeping unwanted organisms out of the vats is part of what makes the process difficult and expensive. A single bacterium or wild yeast spore that gets into a fermenter can ruin the whole batch.

The macroscopic plants are a much more robust system - they can still get sick of course, but it's fairly easy to keep plants healthy. And even given that you can't spray these plants willy-nilly with pesticides, organic farmers get pretty good yields on most products with just natural controls.

Re:Knowing the drug companies . . .

[neatfoote]

And the consumer price will be increased by 20%.

Not really-- according to TFA, the whole point of this new production process is that, being cheaper, it'll enable the manufacturers to sell it at prices below current retail, thus giving them a competitive advantage. If they did what you're suggesting, what would be the incentive for people to buy their more-expensive insulin over the varieties currently on the market?

Knee-jerk rants about wicked capitalists and heartless pharmaceuticals aside, this seems like an excellent example of how market forces can work in favor of innovative and, ultimately, more affordable products. Sure, it's not as good as a wholesale cure would be, but the GM-safflower method they're using may well have cross-applicability to other drug-manufacturing processes which could make it a really important advance. I highly doubt the process would have been developed had the researchers not seen the opportunity to profit from their discoveries.

Re:Knowing the drug companies . . .

[MourningBlade]

And the consumer price will be increased by 20%.

The insulin market is highly competitive. There's also many varities of insulin. If this one can't make a splash on price or on some other quality, it'll go nowhere.

As much as I dislike the AMA-FDA/Congress-Insurance-Pharma cartel, in this instance it's not all that accurate.

Re:could someone do back-of-envelope calculation

[boingo82]

Type II is usually referred to simply as adult-onset diabetes, because until recently, it has been unheard of for young people to develop it. (A high prevalence of childhood obesity is changing this).

This "childhood obesity" could very well be affected by the high consumption of HFCS-sweetened sodas and food products, right?
Just TRY finding a soda that doesn't contain it in the US - the only ones I've found are the Italian fruit sodas at Target. And I've found only one brand of bread that's baked sans HFCS - and it's $3/loaf.

You are correct that the diabetes cases which are caused or exacerbated by HFCS are not the same insulin-dependent cases. That doesn't make me hate the corn lobby any less.

what about generic insulin?

[ShaunC1000]

as a type 1 diabetic it amazes me that there isn't a generic insulin yet. Synthetic insulin has been around for how long now? Luckily I have insurance that covers pretty much anything I need minus a small co-pay, but I know the supplies I need costs my insurance company hundreds a month. You would think insulin and test strips could be made on the cheap by now. I guess its way too profitable for that.

Check out joinleenow.org - they need $11 million (they have $9 million so far) to test a possible treatment and cure using BCG, which I think costs $11 a vial. It amazes me how little support they're getting (maby because it could cure/treat diabetes on the cheap?). So far they have reversed 90% of type 1 diabetic mice.

Scientifically ok, economically, very unlikely

[Ancient_Hacker]

Er, no. It's unlikely to be much cheaper. For several reasons:

• The cost of insulin is likely to be dominated by the costs of research, marketing, distribution, insurance, and the other ingredients that go into the bottle, which control the speed of the insulin release.
• This new technique is likely to be patented, which ups the production costs. The patents on the current kind of grown insulin will run out soon and then that price will drop, while this new one will stay up.
• Products are priced to be competitive, not to greatly undercut the competition.

Treating the Symptom

[Glacial Wanderer]

Worldwide demand for insulin is forecast to soar to 16,000 kg by 2010, from an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 kg last year, because more people are developing the disease and are being diagnosed earlier in their lives

The increase in diabetes has been linked to obesity. It frustrates me that we put so much research and money into treating the symptoms and not the source. I admit it seems like a hard sell to convince people to become healthier, but I believe if there was a large ad campaign, discounts for healthy food, subsidized health clubs, and other incentives to live healthily more people would live healthier lives. It is almost always cheaper to spend money on prevention rather than a cure.