Medicine, not food, may have more to gain from cloning

The cloning of animals may have come from agriculture, but its real promise may be in the lucrative field of medicine rather than as food.

Genetically modified cows and goats can produce proteins in their milk that can be extracted as a drug component. Cloning animals to create living drug factories could lower the costs of medicines used to save lives.

Examples include cows that pump pharmaceutical proteins and antibodies in their milk and blood; chickens that lay drug-producing eggs; and pigs that grow human-ready organs. Making perfect copies of these animals, through cloning, could speed up the drug-making process, according to scientists.

"Once you create a genetically engineered animal, you want to make copies," said David Andrews, director of animal biotechnology at the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade association that represents 1,200 companies.

In Dane County, a now-closed biotech firm created cloned pigs that had human-friendly, transplantable organs.

The same firm, Infigen, created a herd of cloned cows with drug-making capabilities.

Infigen wanted to produce proteins for the treatment of hemophilia, an affliction that causes uncontrolled bleeding, and Pompe's...