Guelph-based pharmaceutical company Plantform Corporations’s subsidiary, AntoXa Corporation, was awarded a contract from the federal government to work on the production of an anti-nerve agent, butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE).
AntoXa received a one-year contract of up to $329,395 and is collaborating with Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) with a likelihood to extend the contract another two years.
The anti-nerve agent BuChE is a plant-based protein that safeguards one against powerful nerve agents such as sarin and soman.
Sarin is a deadly chemical substance that meddles with the body’s nervous system by blocking an enzyme which is responsible for confirming the delivery of a message sent by the neurotransmitter.
Due to the attack on this enzyme, the neurotransmitter in the body sends disorderly messages which can result in twitching, paralysis and unconsciousness.
Soman is very similar to sarin but has psychological effects on the body as well.
Both nerve agents in their liquid form are colourless and tasteless. Sarin is also odourless whereas soman has a slight odour.
It was reported that sarin was the cause of approximately 48 deaths in Syria in April 2018. Women, men and children were seen lying unconscious with foam coming out of their mouth in videos circulating on social media.
In March 2018, former Russian intelligence officer and agent for UK intelligent services Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Sergei were poisoned with a chemical agent, novichok. The father and daughter were found unconscious on a public bench.
AntoXa’s President and Chief Operating Officer Ashley Meyers said incidents like the one in Salisbury and those in Syria underline the importance of developing ways to safeguard from chemical terrorism agents.
“Our mission and objective are to produce defence based solutions to the military and civilian population so that includes medical countermeasures against biological and chemical threats,” said Meyers.
Meyers says the funding is going to support the development of multiple drug candidates of DRDC and they're all based on the drug BuChE, a naturally occurring enzyme in humans which has an ability to bind to and mop up nerve agents.
“AntoXa’s unique approach is that we have a low-cost tobacco-based system that we used to manufacture this. There are other companies out there that are manufacturing this particular enzyme however many of them do it using expired human blood donations,” said Meyers.
“In Canada, that would be from Canadian blood services but that can be very very expensive and resources can be limited as well as there are also certain challenges associated with ensuring that you remove any viruses or pathogens that could potentially be blood products going from one human to another.”
Plantform founder, Christopher Hall – a retired professor of environmental science from the University of Guelph – recognized the advantages of using tobacco plants to create antibodies in the 1990s.
“It’s kind of a copy of the human version and that's Antoxa’s innovation to this problem is the low-cost tobacco system," said Meyers.
“It's certainly important for Canada to develop the capabilities. I hope that we never face a threat like this.”
