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COMPANIES COLLABORATE ON ANIMAL VACCINE

VACAVILLE - Biotechnology company Large Scale Biology Corp. will reportedly collaborate with Schering-Plough Animal Health Corp. to produce and evaluate several vaccines for treating viral infections in animals.

If initial research is successful, the agreement opens the door for Large Scale Biology to manufacture and supply vaccine products for clinical trials and possible commercialization by Schering-Plough Animal Health, based in Union, N.J.

Large Scale produces pharmaceutical compounds in nonfood plants, such as tobacco, a process called biomanufacturing.

US, MEXICO MAKE PROGRESS ON SWEETNER TRADE…SORT OF 

WASHINGTON, DC - Reuters reports that officials from the US and Mexican sweetener industry have agreed to "broad principles" for settling a long-running trade dispute.

"We are confident that these principles can lead to resumption of ... trade in sugar and corn sweetener in the near future," the officials said a joint statement after meeting in private this week in Mexico.

US exports of high-fructose corn syrup stopped early last year after Mexico enacted a stiff tax on domestic soft drinks sweetened with the product. Mexico imposed the tax after failing to win assurances from the US it would be able to export more of its surplus sugar north of the border.

The possible breakthrough came as US lawmakers and the industry this week stepped up a campaign to get Mexico to repeal its beverage tax of face trade retaliation.

But federal deputy Victor Suarez of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution said there was little chance of a deal until the Mexican Congress agreed to lift the 20% tax it imposed in January, 2000 on soft drinks using high fructose corn syrup.

US corn-syrup industry giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. recently said it planned to file a claim against the Mexican government for losses resulting from the tax.

Iowa Republican Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, asked US trade officials to "use whatever means are necessary" to make Mexico comply with its trade obligations.

"The issue of Mexican trade barriers imposed on U.S. farm products is one of great concern to other members of the Senate," Grassley said in a letter to US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick. He noted that Mexico has also hurt US farmers by launching an anti-dumping investigation of US pork and beef.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, recently wrote Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez, saying the soda tax "is clearly inconsistent with Mexico's WTO obligations."

Lugar noted US lawmakers were, "expressing a variety of sentiments, including encouraging retaliatory action against Mexican imports."

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