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Tobacco plants 'growing' antibodies in our greenhouse in Guelph. See our Facebook page for more photos.

PlantForm ships Ebola antibodies to USAMRIID for testing Tweet: PlantForm ships #Ebola antibodies to USAMRIID for testing  http://ctt.ec/ba1Xo+

PlantForm has successfully produced three Ebola antibodies in our vivoXPRESS™ biopharmaceutical manufacturing system, again demonstrating the system’s versatility for monoclonal antibody production, said Dr. Don Stewart, company President and CEO.

“Our plant-based system has produced Ebola antibodies of the desired purity and in the desired quantities,” he said. “The material has been sent to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases for further evaluation.”

PlantForm received funding from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) for the feasibility study, which produced antibodies for the Sudan strain of Ebola. The Sudan strain was responsible for the first-known outbreak of the disease in 1976. The current, and largest, outbreak of the disease is due to another strain of Ebola virus, the Zaire strain, which has killed more than 10,000 people in West Africa to date.
 

PlantForm to receive $500,000 in funding for HIV antibody innovation Tweet: How PlantForm aims to meet the need for low-cost, effective, safer #antibody drugs for #HIV  http://ctt.ec/25bth+

PlantForm Corporation will receive a financial contribution of up to $500,000 from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) to advance the company’s work on innovative antibody treatments for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The contract brings NRC-IRAP funding for the company’s HIV work to a total of $1.37 million.

PlantForm is using its tobacco-plant-based vivoXPRESS™ system to produce antibodies that fight HIV infection by disrupting the virus’s method of entry into human CD4+ lymphocytes (T-cells). The funding will enable the further development, production and testing of antibodies for a potent anti-HIV therapeutic cocktail to treat strains of the disease circulating in Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world. The antibodies will be tested in a novel mouse model that PlantForm is developing in collaboration with Toronto-based Miami Mice Research Corp.

“Our goal is to meet the need for low-cost, effective and safer drugs to eliminate or manage the effects of HIV infection,” said Dr. Don Stewart, PlantForm’s President and CEO. “Thirty-five million people are living with this disease worldwide, many of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. We want to see local manufacturing of these novel treatments where they are needed most.”

PlantForm has previously produced, at small scale, eight antibodies for HIV treatment, which have been shown to be as effective as mammalian-derived antibodies against 15 strains of HIV in in vitro testing conducted at Duke University in partnership with The Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery.

Funding for the project is provided through NRC-IRAP’s Canadian HIV Technology Development (CHTD) Program, which is part of the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative (CHVI), a collaboration between the Government of Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. PlantForm has received previous financial support from NRC-IRAP of up to $867,570 under this program.

Read about PlantForm’s HIV work in the Guelph Mercury.
 
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April 2015

‘Highly accessed’ publication

PlantForm's Dr. Chris Hall and Dr. Mike McLean are contributing authors to a recent Veterinary Research article, Plant-based solutions for veterinary immunotherapeutics and prophylactics, that has earned BioMed Central's prestigious "Highly Accessed" designation — congratulations!
 
 
New staff

PlantForm is pleased to announce three new employees have joined our team. They are:

Jyoti Latawa, Process Development Scientist
 
Ashley Meyers, Director of Special Projects
 
Dr. Krishnaraj Tiwari, Senior Process Development Scientist

All three previously worked in Dr. Chris Hall’s lab and are alumni of the University of Guelph.


Events

April 15 | Don Stewart is a panelist for MaRS Entrepreneurship 101 in Toronto

April 30 – May 3 | 24th Annual Canadian Conference on HIV/AIDS Research in Toronto ‪#CAHR2015

May 7 | MaRS HealthKick 2015 in Toronto #HealthKick2015

June 8-10 | Plant-based Vaccines, Antibodies and Biologics conference in Lausanne, Switzerland (PlantForm is pleased to be a sponsor)

June 15-18 | 2015 Bio International Convention in Philadelphia, USA: PlantForm competes in the RBC Coast to Coast Pitch Competition (East Division) on June 16
 
 


Management Team

Don Stewart, PhD
President & CEO

David Cayea, BA
Chief Operating Officer

Ron Hosking, CA
Chief Financial Officer

J. Christopher Hall, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer

Craig Binnie, PhD
Vice-President Drug Development
PlantForm is a Canadian company focused on providing
 therapeutic antibody drugs that fight cancer and other critical illnesses.