Inside Human Health

NC’s Nicotine Past Links to Medical Breakthroughs

Targacept is a shining star in a growing constellation of North Carolina success stories emerging from cigarette ashes.

In fact, one of the great ironies of North Carolina’s global reputation as a medical Mecca is that it wouldn’t be so if it weren’t for its roots in tobacco.

Tobacco growing has been a mainstay of the state’s economy for generations. For example, Duke University in Durham, one of the world’s great medical institutions, was made possible largely by tobacco profits.

And today, the leaf continues to take on ever-more important new medical roles for the state.

Boosted by LEAF

Medicago, a Canadian drug company with new technology for producing vaccines from tobacco plants, has a multi-million-dollar campus in Durham. The company uses tobacco leaves to produce virus-like particles, which are then extracted, distilled and turned into vaccines.

One of the key reasons Medicago and other major pharmaceutical manufacturers are drawn to North Carolina is the state’s job-ready, highly trained biomanufacturing workforce.

A significant contributor to that skill base has been the Golden LEAF Foundation, distributing tens of millions of tobacco trust fund dollars to the statewide life science expansion — including the North Carolina Biotechnology Center and a $70 million pilot-scale biomanufacturing training center at North Carolina State University.

Spun From Tobacco Research

Targacept, a leader among the state’s many promising young pharmaceutical companies, got its start in 1997 as a Winston-Salem tobacco company spin-out.

Targacept scientists are developing drugs for specific brain-cell regions — neuronal nicotinic receptors — that respond to nicotine and regulate some important functions of the central nervous system.

The company’s product candidates are aimed at treating a wide range of disorders, including:

• Alzheimer's disease
• Depression
• Parkinson’s disease
• Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• The confused thinking that comes with schizophrenia

Showered With Cash

Targacept’s science isn’t directly tobacco-related research nowadays, notes J. Donald deBethizy, Ph.D., the company’s president and CEO.

But understanding fundamentals of nicotine is opening new windows of opportunity. Targacept has been showered with funding, including collaborations and license agreements with global drug giant AstraZeneca that stand to reap Targacept more than $1.2 billion in milestone and royalty payments.

Throughout North Carolina, tobacco is turning over a new leaf with its contribution to the state’s bright economic future in the life sciences.