Tobacco plants being cultivated for vaccine development at KBP facilities. British American Tobacco and Philip Morris International have affiliates that are working on a vaccine for the virus, using a novel process that involves plants related to tobacco.Courtesy of manufacturer
Big tobacco has become an unlikely front-runner in the race to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, and the effort could go a long way toward burnishing its image.
British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris International (PMI) are best known for their cigarette and vaping products, which include brands such as Marlboro, du Maurier, Pall Mall, Vuse and IQOS. While both have been under fire for years over the health hazards of smoking and growing concerns about vaping, the pandemic has offered them a rare chance to promote something positive.
Both companies have affiliates that are working on a vaccine for the virus, using a novel process that involves plants related to tobacco. BAT’s project is being run out of its U.S.-based subsidiary called Kentucky Bioprocessing. It has begun preclinical testing of a vaccine and hopes to be in production by June. BAT added that all the work is being done on a “non-profit basis.”
PMI’s involvement is through Canada’s Medicago Inc., which is 30-per-cent owned by the tobacco giant (the remainder is held by Japan’s Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma). Medicago, which is Latin for “alfalfa,” emerged out of a vaccine research project at Quebec City’s Laval University in the late 1990s. The company teamed up with PMI in 2007, and the partnership has been instrumental in helping Medicago develop previous vaccines for seasonal flu and Ebola.
“They’ve been a great corporate support,” said Medicago’s chief executive Bruce Clark, who spent several years at Philip Morris before joining the Quebec City-based company. “Some of their intellectual property was used in the set up of this technology."
Developing vaccines using plants has been around for a while and the concept has won support from the World Health Organization. But they’ve yet to be produced on a large scale.
The key to making any vaccine is producing an antigen, a substance the body’s immune system recognizes as foreign and begins attacking. Ever since the 1940s, most flu vaccines have been made using chicken eggs. The process involves injecting some of the virus into egg yolks, which provide the nutrients for it to replicate. After a few days, the fluid containing the virus is removed. It’s purified, weakened and turned into an antigen.
Plant-based vaccines start with the virus’s genetic sequencing, which is generated by the WHO and other public health agencies. The gene coding is inserted into a natural bacteria, which is put into a solution. The plants soak up the solution and the bacteria force the cells to produce proteins in leaves, which are extracted as “virus-like particles.” Those particles form the basis of an antigen.
The entire process takes about 20 days, compared with several months for egg-based vaccines. While vaccines derived from eggs contain a bit of live virus, which can become contaminated, the particles from the plant product are completely safe. That’s because they are shells that look like a virus, but don’t contain any of the components needed for replication. Plant vaccines can also be produced much faster because the short weed grows quickly and has dense foliage. The vaccines also don’t need refrigeration, unlike egg vaccines, which lowers production costs.
Dr. Clark said Medicago will begin producing its vaccine in a few weeks. It will then have to go through trials and a regulatory process, which means it won’t be available for at least a year. Once it gets approved, Medicago can produce around 12 million doses a month at facilities in Quebec and North Carolina. The company has received $7-million from the Quebec government to get started and it expects more funding from the federal government if all goes well.
Julian Ma, a virus expert at St. George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, said there’s still a long way to go before a plant-based vaccine for coronavirus is produced. But if successful, “it is a technology that might make vaccines more affordable and accessible for people in low- and middle-income countries,” he said.
Being attached to a COVID-19 vaccine could provide a badly needed public-relations boost to BAT and PMI. They’ve been facing increasing pressure over concerns about vaping, and the emergence of lung problems that have led to fatalities in Canada and the United States. Helping defeat the coronavirus would go a long way toward improving relations with governments and the public. It also “aligns with the current trends that is seeing large corporations pledging to ‘do their part’ in the fight against ‘the invisible enemy,’ ” said Carmen Bryan, a consumer analyst at GlobalData.
Dr. Clark also sees the potential for Medicago to improve the image of PMI as a company that that has been backing away from cigarettes and toward what it calls harm-reduction products such as vaping. “In a way, having a vaccine and supporting the program around this vaccine s not too far off that whole harm-reduction strategy,” he said. “There’s a fit.”
Sign up for the Coronavirus Update newsletter to read the day’s essential coronavirus news, features and explainers written by Globe.