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Eli Lilly's $3 BILLION Greenhouse Bet: Is Hydroponics the Next Pharma Frontier? · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr. Russell Sharp and on yesterday's podcast I said that we will
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  be talking about Eli Lilly and their interest in botanicals and hydroponics
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  and they've just bought a greenhouse facility in the Netherlands.
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  They bought one in Katvik.
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  No information about what they're going to do with it just and
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  then the local you know business people saying it's going
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  to future proof the landscape combining innovation business
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  and community so just like you know flowery words
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  but it looks like it's
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  going to be related something to do with their
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  drugs for weight loss so you
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  may you will have heard because it's been in
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  the news for ages that there are a number of different weight
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  loss drugs that have been coming together in have been used around the world
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  so a zempic has been like the most well-known but maybe not the most commonly
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  used one and this is they're they're all grouped together in small molecule glp1.
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  Agonist orthogloprin basically you normally
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  inject them and then they stop you wanting to eat however
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  they're now developing oral versions so
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  you just eat them and this has caused a number of issues
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  in certain industries not least horticulture and agriculture
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  because obviously people are eating less food
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  and certain people are eating less food obviously if you're not obese or you're
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  not taking these then you're not affected and then if you are affected you will
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  still be eating food but you will be eating less fatty food and less indulgent
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  food and so it could have knock-on effects for horticulture and agriculture,
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  perhaps less requirement for chocolate and cacao and things like this. Who knows?
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  And so, you know, it potentially could be like, it's something like 8% of Americans
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  have or are using GLP-1 agonist, and could rise to a.
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  If they could get an oral one that is approved. So this new greenhouse,
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  with a shrinking demand for, say,
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  fresh produce, if this is okay, less people eating food, then this greenhouse
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  obviously that's been sold,
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  if it's not being used for grow food, perhaps it could be used for grow food,
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  but it looks like it's been developed for boosting capacity of these drugs.
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  It's a $3 billion investment in
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  a new manufacturing site so that's pretty impressive and yeah
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  it what else can we say Elali
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  I said previously I've got a bit of a
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  sketchy past the famous example is
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  a Madagascan periwinkle and they they took it and it was going to be a diabetes
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  cure and they worked with the local shamans in Madagascar and actually developed
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  it into a cure for various cancers.
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  I think it's non-Hodgkinson's lymphoma, things like this.
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  So because of that, things like the Nagoto Protocol came about,
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  where you have to share the profits from any genetic resources that have been
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  taken from the wild or from local populations with the local community.
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  And so, yeah, that's an interesting one.
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  No information has been provided about what's going to happen to this site.
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  It's a fairly low-lying area, so investing $3 billion in an area that's probably
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  below sea level is interesting.
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  But yeah, let's see what happens. Maybe something about the oral dose of these
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  products may require some plants to be grown in a greenhouse.
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  You know, a number of botanicals a number of medicines are still
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  based on plant ingredients so let's
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  think about some off the top of my head well taxol
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  was traditionally from you which is a
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  cure for breast cancer it's now synthetically produced the
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  in covid everyone was after the
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  the the antivirals and a
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  lot of the antivirals are what was the famous one
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  that everyone was after let me just check that tamiflu that
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  requires schimmick acid which comes from star
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  anise if you like cooking indian food you'll know star anise
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  and there was a massive limitation on the amount of star anise that could be
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  produced during covid what are the drugs obviously opiates from opium i have
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  never worked out where they grow opium the major producer of opium for medicinal
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  use is i think in oxfordshire in England.
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  But where they actually grow it, I don't know. Maybe it's a secret location somewhere in the UK.
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  And obviously, there is now a number of cannabinoid legal drugs that are grown
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  from, made from cannabis, and either in a very refined form, not synthetic, but.
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  There is also flour as well that people take for medicine.
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  So it's not restricted to that. There are many, many other drugs that come from botanical sources.
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  So it'd be interesting to know what Eli Lilly are going to do with this greenhouse.
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  So watch this space and hopefully we'll find out soon.
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  All right, that's been Hydroponics for today. If you found it at all useful,
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  a bit of a rambling one, please do leave an Apple podcast review.
• 5:42
  And if you're not on Apple, don't leave a review because it's useless,
• 5:45
  but do check out utreema.co.uk and you'll find loads of interesting products
• 5:49
  and technology we haven't got three billion dollars to invest in holland but
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  we do have some exciting technology thank you very much for listening until next time goodbye.