The implementation of Biotechnological techniques in pharmaceutical industries is not a new concept. However, till now their applications were limited only to microbial world and to several animals for drug production. Recent advancements which enabled extraction of medicines from genetic modification of various plants have brought significant attention to their utilization in producing biopharmaceuticals to supplement industrial production.
The genetic modification of plants involves insertion of genes into the potential organism and applying gene expression method on them. The inserted genes are nothing but the one which can be coded to produce desired substance into the targeted organism. There are several organisms used as the potential source for producing biopharmaceuticals, but the bacterium Escherichia coli is given prior importance. This particular bacterium can be used to produce several recombinant proteins and first human insulin was also produced from them. This bacterium provides the most efficient way to produce drugs and therefore nearly 60% of licensed drugs in biotechnological plants are produced in it.
PMPs are plants that produce medical drugs and the cultivation of these plants are going on at rapid rates in several countries. These plants are designated as 1st, 2nd and 3rd-generation plants. 1st generation plants are those which are already in use in various biotechnological plants and are employed to produce useful biopharmaceuticals. Those plants which have crossed their initial reviews and are presently under their higher development stages are referred as 2nd generation plants. 3rd generation plants are those which are still under the process of research or are at their initial review stages. Many countries including USA uses food crops such as maize and soya as means to produce pharmaceuticals. However use of non-food crops as major PMPs should be well practiced to avoid any possibilities of mixing of eatables and potential drug crops.
The success story of biotechnological plants can be revealed from the fact that out of 100 best selling drugs in the market; nearly 20 of the drugs are biopharmaceuticals and thus account for around 20% of the pharmaceutical market.
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