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It's an idyllic setting: the silence of the countryside, green meadows rolling into the distance and cows foraging lazily on the grass.
What's out of place is a double row of two-metre-high, fully alarmed fencing surrounding each paddock - the only clue that these ordinary-looking Hereford-Holstein cross cows might be unusual.
And indeed they are - they're transgenic. These cows have extra genes that allow them to make a protein in their milk that could soon be used to treat people with multiple sclerosis. In fact, the treatment is already in the second stage of human clinical trials. Welcome to the brave new world of farm-gate pharmaceuticals.
It's not just dairy cows that are being tasked with making medicines. In the United States there is a 100-strong herd of goats that produces anti-blood clotting medicine in its milk.
Over the course of a single year, each goat will on average produce enough of the medicine in its milk to replace 50,000 of the blood collections currently required to ensure people in need receive this life-saving agent.
The goat-produced blood-clotting factor, called human antithrombin III (trade name: ATryn), is already on the market in Europe and the U.S., and it should be available in Australia soon.
Around the world, traditional farming is morphing into biopharming, as pharmaceutical companies turn to cows and goats, rabbits and sheep for new ways to produce drugs.
"It's a dramatic new direction in terms of the way we can make pharmaceuticals," says William Heiden, chief executive of GTC Biotherapeutics - the company that manufactures ATryn based in Framingham, Massachusetts, a regional town 30 km outside of Boston.
The greatest impact biopharming will have on the world's medicine cabinet is one of supply - it will dramatically boost the availability of biopharmaceuticals, also known as 'biologics'. Biologics are defined as medicinal products extracted from or produced by biological systems - many are made by genetically manipulating cells of bacterial, animal or human origin.
The majority of biologics are proteins such as hormones, enzymes, growth factors and antibodies, which can be collectively called therapeutic proteins, as well as viral proteins for use in vaccines.
Argentina's largest and oldest biotech company, Bio Sidus, is one of a handful of worldwide companies at the forefront of biopharming technology. They have six cell-system-generated biologics on international markets and are at various stages of creating transgenic Jersey cows to make biopharmaceuticals that include insulin and human growth hormone.
To create their cell-system-generated biologics, genetically modified cells are propagated in cell culture systems - huge stainless steel vats inside sterile, brewery-like manufacturing facilities. To sustain cells is no easy task: they churn through thousands of litres of costly liquid nutrients.
