New Method Sought to Make Ebola Drug Grown From Tobacco

Biotechnology researchers and U.S. officials are rushing to try to make more of what may be the most promising experimental drug to treat Ebola after supply ran out in August.

The drug, ZMapp, is made by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. Mapp and its partners have had early discussions with Amgen Inc. (AMGN) about the feasibility of increasing production of the antibody cocktail using a traditional biotechnology manufacturing technique, said Bryan Callahan, a senior program officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The foundation gave Mapp a $150,000 grant to look at whether a new large-scale production technique is possible. No final decision has been made on the pharma partner, Callahan said in an e-mail. Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, California, is the worlds biggest biotechnology company by sales.

ZMapp is currently made using tobacco plants, which can be induced to grow the antibodies in the drug. Federal officials have also considered an expanded tobacco-based production process.

The cocktail of three antibodies has been used to treat two Ebola-infected American health workers who recovered, a Spanish priest who died and three Liberian health workers.

Mapp, a closely held, San Diego-based company, developed ZMapp with the Public Health Agency of Canada and the U.S. government. For now, production has been limited to a handful of doses. Thats far too few to have an impact on the current outbreak in West Africa that, according to the World Health Organization, has infected more than 8,000 people, killing about half.

To produce therapeutic proteins inside a tobacco plant, genes for the desired antibodies are fused to genes for a natural tobacco virus. The tobacco plants are then infected with the artificial virus, producing the antibodies. The plants are then ground up and the antibodies extracted.

The Seattle-based Gates Foundation said yesterday its $150,000 grant would look at the possibility of using Chinese hamster ovary cells, similar to how many other complex biotechnology drugs are made, Callahan said. While the technique offers a slower route than plant production, the infrastructure for manufacturing in CHO cells is well established, which means that production can be scaled up rapidly, he said.

Kristen Davis, an Amgen spokeswoman, said the company was in discussions with the Gates Foundation and other organizations to see if Amgen can help with this effort.

The Texas A&M Center for Innovation in Advanced Development & Manufacturing is in daily talks with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services about how it and its partner, Caliber Biotherapeutics LLC, can product large quantities of ZMapp from tobacco plants, a Texas A&M official said.

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New Method Sought to Make Ebola Drug Grown From Tobacco