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	special feature Pharm and Industrial Crops: The Next Wave of Agricultural Biotechnology

WILL PHARM AND INDUSTRIAL CROPS DELIVER ON THEIR PROMISE? As with potential benefits and risks, chances of succeeding in the market place and delivering on promises will vary from product to product. For example, while developers of edible vaccines have made progress, they have encountered many obstacles. Whole fruits cannot be used as the delivery system, for example, because detached plant organs continue to be metabolically active and vaccine levels may therefore change, either increasing or decreasing, with time after harvest. (Potatoes sprouting in storage are a good example of this metabolic activity.) Processing (at least partially) and batch-monitoring of vaccine-containing fruits would therefore be necessary, making storage and processing-associated costs additional issues that must be addressed before edible vaccines, at least for the developing world, are economically viable. There are also hurdles to overcome in reducing production costs. The most optimistic estimates often do not include research and development, sales-associated, and other costs. Many, including the president of Baxter Healthcare Corporation's recombinant DNA business, have suggested that purification of some proteins from pharm and industrial plants will pose considerable cost-related challenges. Some analysts have even suggested that extraction and sales of conventional food products like meal, oil, and starch might be necessary to make some pharm and industrial crops economically viable. Purification will be a big issue, especially for the drugs and vaccines. Standards of purity for vaccines and drugs are very high. Effectively purifying foreign proteins away from plant-produced contaminants and/or agricultural products like pesticides could prove formidable. Even if costs of production are reduced, those savings may not be passed on to consumers as lower prices. Virtually none of the biotechnology food products on the market today in the United States deliver price benefits to consumers. next section back to the first page