BAT progresses COVID-19 candidate vaccine into Phase I human clinical trials

Notes to Editors

The COVID-19 candidate vaccine in development uses KBP’s proprietary, fast-growing plant technology which has several potential advantages over conventional vaccine production technology:

•  Tobacco plants cannot host pathogens which cause human disease
•  Production may be faster because the elements of the vaccine accumulate in tobacco plants quickly – 6 weeks in tobacco plants versus several months using conventional methods
•  The vaccine formulation being developed has potential to be stable at room temperature, unlike many other conventional vaccines which often require refrigeration

BAT/KBP’s candidate COVID-19 vaccine, KBP-COVID-19, is not currently approved or licensed for use anywhere in the world.

About Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP)

BAT-owned KBP is located in Owensboro, KY., where it began operations in 2006. In January 2014, KBP was acquired by and became an independently operated, wholly-owned subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc. (RAI), owned by BAT. KBP continues to house its large, multilevel indoor plant-growth space, as well as its research and production laboratories, clean rooms and manufacturing operations in Owensboro.

KBP develops and executes processes to transform tobacco plants into “biomanufacturing factories” that efficiently produce complex proteins they would not otherwise produce. With the right commercial partner, the company can grow, harvest and process as many as 3 million protein-producing plants in a production cycle that typically takes about 6 weeks – compared with many months using traditional biomanufacturing methods.

The company uses licensed and proprietary technologies to temporarily encode tobacco plants with the genetic instructions to produce specific target proteins. The plants are grown in an automated, climate-controlled environment that can be adjusted to optimize their production of a protein of interest.

Forward looking statements

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