The global plant-based vaccines market, currently valued at $43.7 million, will expand at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 50 percent from 2021 to 2028, according to Coherent Market Insights.
Key trends in the market include increasing research and development activities, increasing cases of influenza, ongoing clinical trials on plant-based vaccine and inorganic activities, such as collaborations by the market players.
Coherent Market Insights expects increasing research and development activities to bolster growth of the plant-based vaccines market. For instance, on Nov. 10, 2020, Medicago started conducting clinical trials for a plant-based Covid-19 vaccine. Medicago is also developing a VLP Quadrivalent plant-based vaccine for seasonal influenza. Currently, the influenza vaccine is in Phase II of the clinical trial. In both the cases, the company uses Nicotiana benthamiana, an Australian tobacco plant, to produce the vaccine.
British American Tobacco is also developing a Covid-19 vaccine based on tobacco plants, as are researchers in Thailand.
According to Coherent Market Insights, plant-based vaccines offer several benefits over conventional egg-based vaccine production in terms of efficiency, production time and enhancing the immune system of the patient.
However, there is no plant-derived vaccine approved to be marketed for human consumption to date. Challenges to develop effective vaccines include selection of antigen and plant expression host, uniformity of dosage and manufacturing of plant vaccines, according to good manufacturing practice procedures, according to Coherent Market Insights.