• Technology

• Health

• Environment

• Project Co-ordinator: Dr. phil. Margret Engelhard, Dipl.-Biol.

• Presentation of the study on 30 October 2008

• Summary of the book

• Memorandum: E. Rehbinder et al.: Pharming. Promises and risks of biopharmaceuticals derived from genetically modified plants and animals., Springer 2009 (Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment, Vol. 35)

• Graue Reihe 43: M. Engelhard et al. (Eds): Pharming. A New Branch of Biotechnology, 11/ 2007

• R. Pardo et al.: “The role of means and goals in technology acceptance. A differentiated landscape of public perceptions of pharming”. EMBO reports Vol. 10 (10) 2009; supplementary information

• Duration: 7/06–12/08

• Funding: German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): “Competition for interdisciplinary junior scientist groups within the framework of innovation and technology analysis”

• Further Information on “Gene Technology”

Recent scientific advances have made it possible to produce biopharmaceuticals in genetically modified plants and animals, such as maize, tobacco, goats, and chickens. This new branch of biotechnology is termed pharming and constitutes an overlap of red and green biotechnology. The study analyses the complex ecological, social, moral and legal questions that have as yet not been thoroughly discussed. It concludes that pharming is a viable and potentially competitive means of producing an important subset of biopharmaceuticals. In some cases, pharming may be the most efficient, or even the only, way of producing a particular protein. A clearer regulatory framework is needed to handle pharming in order to decrease economic and ecological risks. The moral evaluation of pharming should consider the potential suffering inflicted on pharming animals, the purpose of, and need for, the specific products for which the animals or plants are used. Also the precautionary principle in view of the available scientific evidence and its limitations, and the difficulties in performing a systematic risk-benefit assessment of both animal and plant pharming, have to be taken into account. The risk assessment of pharming requires a case by case approach. However, the study also proposes some general measures for handling high levels of uncertainty and the fact that all types of genetic or physical plant containment, confinement and isolation systems may be leaky at some point. In addition risk-benefit evaluation – not only a risk assessment – should be made a precondition of authorization, both with respect to the experimental and the production phase.

Gene Technology