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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) added to a small list of gene-edited animals that can be used in the food supply chain with its approval of a pig produced to resist one of the world’s most costly livestock diseases.
The FDA on April 29 announced its approval of the pig made to be resistant to Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS). The pigs’ genes are edited with CRISPR technology to delete a small portion of their DNA coding, Exon 7 of CD163, which regulates the protein that PRRS viruses use to infect a pig’s cells.
The new disease resistant pig breed has been under development for several years by PIC, a subsidiary of Genus, which is a member of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO).
The possibility of preventing PRRS in pigs could be a major victory for pork growers.
“PRRS caused an estimated $1.2 billion per year in lost production in the U.S. pork industry from 2016 to 2020, an 80% increase from a decade earlier,” according to an Iowa State University study.
Because PRRS also causes bacterial coinfections, it can lead to a 200% increase in use of antibiotics, a study has shown. Overuse of antibiotics in animals is known to drive the rise of antimicrobial resistant superbugs.
FDA just beginning to OK gene-edited meat
The pig joins only three other gene-edited animals that are allowed to be sold as food in the U.S.:
- AquaBounty’s AquaAdvantage, an Atlantic salmon produced to grow faster than other salmon, was the first genetically engineered animal for food to receive FDA approval, in 2015.
- GalSafe pigs, genetically engineered to be safe for people with the meat allergy alpha-gal syndrome, were approved by FDA for sale as a food in 2020 but are not widely marketed.
- FDA decided in 2022 that it would not object to Acceligen marketing its “SLICK” beef cattle, which is produced with CRISPR gene editing to have short-hair and thus be more tolerant of hotter climates.
The next step for the PRRS-resistant pig is commercialization. According to Genus, full U.S. commercialization of the PRRS-resistant pigs will be possible once the pigs are approved for sale in U.S. target markets of Mexico, Canada, and Japan.
“FDA approval is a fantastic achievement for Genus PIC and represents a major step towards U.S. commercialization. We will now continue to pursue regulatory approvals in other international jurisdictions with a focus on key U.S. export markets” said Jorgen Kokke, Genus’s Chief Executive Officer.
