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beyond marijuana - prairie plant systems branches out
“Marijuana was our gateway drug,” jokes Brent Zettl, President and CEO of Prairie Plant Systems, the Saskatoon based company best known for being the official supplier of marijuana for Health Canada. Zettl says the 2000 contract to grow medicinal marijuana in an old mine near Flin Flon, Manitoba provided proof of concept and they are now using biosecure underground growth chambers to produce therapeutic proteins otherwise known as plant made pharmaceuticals. “We initially thought we would be a service provider to biotech companies but the big players got out of plant made pharmaceuticals and instead focused their biotech efforts on becoming seed companies,” explains Zettl. “That opened up plant made pharmaceutical development to smaller players and we saw the potential.” By 2003 Prairie Plant Systems, along with its partners at NRC’s Plant Biotechnology Institute, developed their own transgenic platform; a legume containing genes for a specific protein critical to the human immune system, adenosine deaminase (ADA). ADA deficiency is a rare inherited disorder that results in severe combined immunodeficiency, more commonly known as bubble boy disease. Treatment frequently includes an enzyme replacement therapy with the affected individual receiving an injection of ADA extracted from cow spleens. The development of a bean that produces ADA could dramatically reduce the cost of this type of treatment. Zettl says a partner company is expected to have the plant-produced ADA into clinical trials within the year, paving the way for other transgenically produced products. He says Prairie Plant Systems currently have four other proteins in the production pipeline. “We see ourselves becoming a biogeneric producer of off-patent and orphaned drugs; drugs that are difficult to produce which don’t have a lot of demand for them.” Zettl says developing these plant made pharmaceuticals has been a long haul and was only possible because Prairie Plant Systems was self-sustaining, relying on its Environment Division which conducts revegetation and reclamation projects and its BioProducts Division which specializes in cloning new varieties of prairie hardy fruits developed at the University of Saskatchewan. The have also continued doing contract work in the underground growth chambers and have four business process patents pending in relation to that work. “We’ve really turned the corner with 30 percent growth in sales in the past few years and a similar growth rate for the foreseeable future,” says Zettl. There are currently more than 50 employees at the Saskatoon head office and five employees at the Michigan based subsidiary where the underground growth chambers are now located. While the head office is located just outside Saskatoon, Prairie Plant Systems continues to have a presence at the L.F. Kristjanson Biotechnology Complex where it has been located since 1989.- June 2010 |
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