Plant-based vaccine makers take on big boys

New York

TWO tiny companies are preparing to challenge some of the largest drug makers in the battle for dominance in the US$3 billion global market for influenza vaccines, armed with little more than tiny tobacco plants.

The use of plants to produce life-saving pharmaceuticals captured global attention when it was revealed that the Ebola drug ZMapp is produced in the leaves of tobacco plants.

Even as Ebola cases multiply in West Africa, a far greater market for plant-based biopharmaceuticals will likely be influenza vaccines used to fight pandemics, industry experts said. Making vaccines from plants may turn out to be fas…