Plant-Based Insulin Emerging As Inexpensive Diabetes Treatment

Filed in archive Treatment on January 9, 2007

Yet another fascinating 'natural' treatment
seems to be emerging:

Canadian firm SemBioSys Genetics last week announced that its proprietary plant-produced insulin has been shown to be indistinguishable from human insulin, opening up a whole new potential source of the hormone.

The findings could have massive implications for the insulin market, currently dominated by only three companies - Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi Aventis, recording blockbuster insulin sales of over $7.2bn (€5.6bn) in 2005.

The company believes manufacturing insulin using its commercial plant safflower could reduce capital costs compared to existing insulin manufacture by up to 70 per cent, and product costs by 40 per cent or more. In November the company announced a manufacturing deal with Canadian firm Cangene for the processing and purification of it plant-based insulin.

With the popularity of natural treatments rising so quickly, what sort of implications do you think this holds for the future of diabetes treatments?