BioWorld International Correspondent

PARIS - Meristem Therapeutics and Stallergenes SA entered a collaboration to evaluate the industrial feasibility of producing two major mite allergens in plants and then establishing industrial-scale facilities for their production.

Under the three-year agreement, Meristem, of Clermont-Ferrand, which is specialized in the production of recombinant proteins in plants, will test the feasibility of producing the two allergens in tobacco. The company's marketing and communications manager, Emmanuel Bourès, told BioWorld International that this would take about two years and that if the results were positive, it would scale-up its production facilities to produce larger volumes of the proteins.

He said Stallergenes, of Antony, would have to decide whether Meristem should produce one or both of the proteins, depending on the capacity of tobacco to produce them and the degree of protein expression obtained. Meristem hopes the collaboration will give rise to a longer-term commercial contract for protein production, which could generate significant revenues for the company, Bourès said.

Stallergenes is a leader in allergen immunotherapy, producing more than 200 products for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of allergies. It said there could be both efficacy and cost advantages in producing recombinant allergens compared with its current process of extracting natural allergens from mites. It said laboratory experiments have demonstrated the potential for generating allergen expression in plants and that allergic patients have shown a better clinical response to recombinant allergens expressed in plants than those obtained from more conventional systems.