GTC Biotherapeutics (fka GTCB)

[rustyboy]

My rough guess is the potential cost advantage of transgenics remains quite significant--lets says $40 to $60 million
for a goat based platform versus--say $300 to $500 million for a cell culture facility. (Some of you may have some better numbers on this--I'd appreciate any better info.)

Regarding 'industry-wide' capacity, with some 200 Mabs alone in development, I expect 'capacity' will continue to be a real planning issue for many companies. Which leads me to my main point and that is the 'scaleabilty' of production using the transgenic approach is also a key advantage. A company normally has to guess how much capacity they will need when they build a cell culture facility and the capital outlay occurs up front. With goats (or cows or rabbits) a company could not only spend less up front, they then can scale up the herd as demand grows.

Some examples of the difficulties of matching capacity with demand include Biogen/Elan with their Tysabri factory--which they were able to sell to Genentech. Abgenix built a facilty and then the product they built it for failed. Going the other way, several years ago Immunex got Enbrel approved and it was such a hit, they quickly maxed out their factory and their limited capacity angered the public and allowed Remicade to get more RA patients than they otherwise would have.