Ozempic (and other glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) medications) have become extremely popular in recent years. So popular, in fact, that there have been shortages of them making it so they were unavailable for some of the people who needed it most. While the drug is primarily to help those with diabetes, it has also been used to effectively help people to lose significant amounts of weight, which is part of the reason it has become so popular.

Even with the fact that it is often not covered by insurance, millions of people have been buying it and using it to great effect.

In an effort to combat shortages of this drug, students at the University of Ottawa in Canada have started working with a process called “Phytogene” that actually allows them to grow the drug on plants. In this case, they take Nicotiana benthamina plants (a cousin of the tobacco plant) and use it to create a type of GLP-1 drug.

This is a concept known as biopharming, which is where plants are genetically engineered to produce various types of pharmaceutical proteins. In this case, the effort is led by bioscience students Victor Boddy and Teagan Thomas, according to a press release. They talked about their goals, saying:

“We aim to create a future where people can reliably grow their own treatments at home free from concerns about insurance, cost, or availability.”

Biopharming has already had some use in growing certain types of vaccines and cancer treatments in the past. This is the first time that something as popular as Semaglutide (the drug in Ozempic) has been attempted.

On the website run for this program is information that shows that this process can be used to create any peptide sequence using a plant genome. They explain:

“With our ‘plug-and-play’ design, we can incorporate any peptide sequence into the plant genome. The plant’s molecular machinery then transcribes and translates our peptide in impressive quantities.”

The press release on this effort has confirmed that they have already grown the drug successfully and they are working on putting it through the necessary tests to make it useful to patients. They explain:

“We are currently analyzing blood glucose and insulin levels to assess response. We also plan to conduct bioactivity assays to test the drug’s effectiveness on human cells.”

If the plant-grown drug passes the necessary tests, it will be able to move forward with other trials, including eventually human trials. Whether it will ever get to a point where regular people can grow their own medications like this is not known, but having this method available will undoubtedly help with the supply of this and other popular meds.

It may also result in the meds becoming cheaper and more readily available around the world.

If you think that’s impressive, check out this story about a “goldmine” of lithium that was found in the U.S. that could completely change the EV battery game.