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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.'"
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
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.
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.
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.