OWENSBORO — An Owensboro biomedical facility will soon begin producing vaccines that treat cervical cancer and AIDS.

        Large Scale Biology Corp. signed an agreement Monday with South Africa's Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town to collaborate on the development and manufacture of the vaccines.

        They would be produced at Large Scale's Owensboro plant and delivered to the University of Cape Town for human clinical trials, said Ed Rybicki, a professor at the university.

        “If the clinical trials are successful, we would produce (vaccines) for the U.S. market in Owensboro,” said Large Scale chairman Robert Erwin.

        Large Scale, based in Vacaville, Calif., specializes in using plants to create proteins used in the manufacturing of drugs and enzymes.

        The Owensboro facility has a contract with Growers Research Group of Monterey County, Calif., to produce an antimicrobial enzyme designed to wipe out several plant diseases; an agreement with Phylogix Inc., a Scarborough, Maine, biotech company, to grow hyacinths to create a product to protect and repair tissue damage caused by chemotherapy; and a Large Scale-developed drug for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

        The vaccines will be extracted from specialized tobacco plants, called Nicotiana excelsiana. The company patented the species earlier this year.

        Mr. Erwin said there are no health risks associated with growing the vaccines in tobacco plants.

        Large Scale has not announced a timetable for commercial production of the vaccines. The South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative has set a goal of having “an affordable, effective and locally relevant HIV vaccine” by 2010.

        Preclinical testing will take one to two years, Mr. Erwin said.

        Nearly 75 percent of the estimated 40 million people who have HIV/AIDS live in Africa, the United Nations estimates. About 4.74 million victims live in South Africa.

        Monday's agreement gives the University of Cape Town rights to the sale of vaccines in Africa. Large Scale gets those rights for North America and Europe. And the two groups will share the rights in the rest of the world.

        Mr. Rybicki said the agreement “brings appropriate technology to South Africa to enable the development of cost-effective vaccines for Africa.”

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