World’s first plant-based COVID vaccine wins approval in Japan

According to The Asahi Shimbun, Japanese pharmaceutical giant Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp. (MTPC) announced that a COVID-19 vaccine derived from a type of tobacco plant and developed by Medicago Inc., the Osaka-based company’s subsidiary in Canada, had been approved for human use by Ottawa.
The company said it marked the first time in the world for a plant-based vaccine to win such approval. The vaccine is of a type that uses “virus-like particles,” which mimic the structure of a virus. It is made by introducing genes of the virus into leaf cells of Nicotiana genus plants.
MTPC said it is hoping to apply for approval of the vaccine in Japan this summer. 

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14558584