Advantages of Pharming.
Cheaper means of Production
The most obvious and clear advantage involved with pharming is the reduction in the costs of production. The sheer economical benefits which pharming have the potential to create will completely change the pharmaceutical industry. The technology of pharming allows pharmaceutical producers to use agricultural livestock as bioreactor that would other wise cost million of dollars and year to construct and run.
“A traditional protein factory costs $200-$400 million to build in 3- 5 years. A new strain of livestock costs $100 million to develop in only 18 months. If more capacity is needed, more animals can be bred, or fields planted.” (NCPA 2001)
Despite the high costs and the time associated with further developing the technology of pharming it will turn out as a better investment in the long run due to the ever increasing demand for pharmaceuticals.
In addition to the savings in the construction and research phases, the economic benefit of pharming is especially emphasized during the production stages. In pharmaceutical factories bioreactors have enormous costs associated with its operation such as the costs of labour, raw material and power. In contrast the production of pharmaceutical through pharming cost almost nothing where most of the costs are associated with extraction of pharmaceuticals from the animal’s milk. During the production stages of pharming pharmaceuticals are produced directly though the animal’s own genetic process of mitosis, where raw material and energy to power the animal comes from the food it eats and the animals require a much smaller labour force to support. A pharming operation which employs the goats as bioreactors only costs approximately 5% of the cost of a conventional protein production facility. (NCPA 2001)
In a capitalist economy where the pharmaceutical industry is controlled by free enterprise the mere economic benefits of pharming enough warrants its full utilization.
Better accessibility for consumers
Due to lower costs of production the prices of pharmaceutical will possibly drop, this will result in higher production and accessibility for pharmaceuticals among the population. Currently there is extremely high demand for pharmaceutical while supply is struggling to keep up.
“In 2007, the Food and Drug Administration listed 154 drugs that were in short supply or no longer available. That figure exploded to 456 in 2012. Today there are more than 300 drugs listed in short supply by the FDA.” (Koba 2015)
On the other hand the technology of pharming can easily adjust its supply to the increasing demand as GMO goats can be bred to fully mature and begin production after just 18 months. A GMO goat can produce significant amounts of pharmaceuticals from its steady supply of milk. Due to reliable supply the growing demand can be better satisfied.
A greater supply of pharmaceutical may make pharmaceuticals more accessible to those who most desperately need it. Six million children under the age of five die every year due to a lack of medical care (World Health Organization Unknown Date). The "totally exorbitant" (Wagner 2010) prices of medicine play a significant role here. The technology of pharming may help to dramatically ease this desperate demand. Less pricey medicine alone would improve medical care in developing countries. (Gerbsch 2007)
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Flexibility
The technologies of pharming have the potential for much greater flexibility in production than the rigid production chain of pharmaceutical factories. After the technology of pharming has been developed new animals can be bred much more quickly and at lower costs. Goats are commonly used as bioreactors for pharmaceutical (CRG 2015) because goats have short gestation period of about 5 months and reach maturity in 1 year (Kimmel 2006), hence this means a new means of production can be bred in merely 18 months with almost no economic consequences as opposed to pharmaceutical factories which takes years and millions of dollars to construct.
The technology of pharming presents far more flexible options for industries because as demand increase more GMO animals can be simply bred with the existing ones as opposed to the long and tedious tasks of constructing new facilities.
Hospitals and consumer will be less prone to consequences associated with the instability of factory production that may be hindered by supply chain shortage and worker strikes. In contrast GMO animals produce pharmaceuticals through their own genetic process; ultimately biology is less prone to errors than human-run factories. The resilience of Biology eliminates the aspect of human errors associated with mass production. Even if disaster hits, new animals can simply be bred in a short spam of time.
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