ALTOR GETS GOVT FUNDING TO MAKE DRUGS IN LETTUCE

In the US, Altor BioScience has received a phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to support development of its processes for making therapeutic antibodies in transgenic lettuce. The company's grant application was submitted in response to President George W Bush's Executive Order encouraging innovation in manufacturing, issued by the White House in February 2004. Altor said the long-term goal of the project is to use its plant expression system to produce a variety of immunotherapeutic drugs -- including anticancer antibodies -- at very low manufacturing costs.

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