VTT introduces a new biotechnological method for anti-cancer drug production

Less expensive production method reduces the costs on the consumer and society

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Belgian institute VIB (Flander Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology) have developed a new, efficient method for producing plant-derived compounds in cell cultures. Such compounds are for example used for expensive special pharmaceuticals. The new method will provide a more inexpensive and efficient method for producing anti-cancer drugs in the near future.

Isolating pharmaceuticals from plants is difficult due to their extremely low concentrations. Since the raw material is scarce or its chemical production is too difficult or even impossible, the industry currently lacks sufficient methods for producing all of the desired plant-derived pharmaceutical molecules. Some substances can only be isolated from extremely rare plants. The biotechnical method developed by VTT and VIB offers a quick and efficient method for producing these high-value medical compounds in cultivated cells. In the future, the new production method may also offer alternatives to other highly expensive drugs.

Chief Research Scientist Kirsi-Marja Oksman-Caldentey from VTT Biotechnology is leading a project, which purpose is to investigate how these valuable compounds can be produced by modifying cell metabolism. Live plant cells produce complex chemical compounds. By steering the cell metabolism, or metabolic engineering, it is possible to affect the production of the desired high-value compounds. It is also possible to use the new technology to produce totally new compounds. This is the first systematical study whose purpose is to analyse the plant cell biosynthesis, or the entire chain of events leading to the creation of compounds.

Today, one-fourth of all pharmaceuticals are of plant origin, either used as a pure compound or chemically engineered to form appropriate derivatives. These include compounds such as morphine, codeine and several anti-cancer drugs. The plant Catharanthus roseus (Madagaskar Periwinkle) is the source of a compound that is used in the treatment of advanced breast cancer and leukaemia, for example.

The results of VTT’s project are very promising, and currently VTT and VIB are now focusing on how to commercialise the method.