[In 2016], Recombinetics, the 35-person company [geneticist Scott Fahrenkrug] founded in 2008 with three other geneticists from the University of Minnesota, introduced its first genetically edited farm animal, a hornless Holstein milk cow… [Its] primary aim remains to supply gene-edited livestock to the agriculture industry, and Recombinetics says it can start doing that if, and about as soon as, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves. “We have several multimillion-dollar deals in the final steps of negotiations, down to the dots and titles,” Fahrenkrug says.
The FDA remains a big if. Before the agency approved the first genetically modified animal for human consumption in 2015, a fast-growing species of Atlantic salmon, biotech company AquaBounty Technologies had to spend $80 million over close to two decades, eventually selling itself to biotech giant Intrexon to keep operating. And the odyssey isn’t over: The FDA is developing more complex labeling requirements for the fish at the order of Congress.
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The FDA told the company it’d be subject to forthcoming regulations, issued in the final 48 hours of the Obama administration, that lumped in all DNA-altered animals with AquaBounty’s salmon as a “new animal drug” rather than a breeding process, subjecting them to much longer evaluation processes.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: This Genetics Company Is Editing Horns Off Milk Cows
