Medicago Inc. announced that it will conduct a feasibility study in collaboration with Genopole biopark, in Evry, for the establishment of a vaccine production facility in France.

Medicago has obtained a grant from the Quebec Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade to finance 40 per cent of the study. The study will be conducted by SNC Lavalin with the assistance of Medicago and the Genopole d'Evry.

"Medicago's proprietary plant-based vaccine development and production technologies can deliver large volumes of vaccines, just one month after the identification of genetic sequences from an emerging pandemic strain. This rapid time frame is critical as it could allow the vaccination of a population before the first wave of the pandemic strikes," said Andy Sheldon, president and CEO of Medicago. "As we are able to rapidly produce new vaccines in large quantities, we have been in discussions with several countries in Europe, Asia and Africa for the establishment of partnerships to create domestic vaccine production infrastructures based on Medicago's technologies."

"In particular, we are excited to be exploring this opportunity in greater detail in France, where the objective is to establish a facility that offers surge capacity to produce pandemic vaccine doses and eventually other biodefense related products, as well as offering bioproduction services to local companies. We expect to complete all necessary studies by the end of 2008 and greatly appreciate the support of the Quebec government for our efforts to commercialize this technology globally," added Sheldon.

Medicago is committed to provide highly effective and affordable vaccines based on proprietary Virus-Like Particle (VLP) and manufacturing technologies. Medicago is developing VLP vaccines to protect against H5N1 pandemic influenza, using a transient expression system which produces recombinant vaccine antigens in non-transgenic plants.

Genopole is the leading French science park dedicated to life sciences. Its campus - near Paris - combines academic and private research laboratories, university/higher education facilities, biotechnology companies, and an incubator for biotech start-ups..