Canadian drug maker has found a use for some 500,000 discarded Christmas trees, announcing plans to extract a key ingredient in the manufacture of avian influenza antiviral drugs from their needles.
Family-owned Biolyse Pharma Corporation will begin next month making shikimic acid, the main ingredient in the manufacture of oseltamivir, commonly known as Tamiflu, from the needles of pine, spruce and fir trees.
"Trees that would have otherwise ended up in the wood chipper after Christmas will be used to make a drug to help protect people from a possible pandemic that could kill millions of people," said company president Brigitte Kiecken, who founded the small firm with her husband, Claude Mercure, in 1980.
The bird flu virus has killed more than 70 people in Asia since 2003. It is currently spread among animals and from animals to humans. Scientists fear it could mutate into a strain easily spread between humans, causing a pandemic.
Tamiflu, which is made by Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche, is acknowledged as being effective against human infections of the deadly H5N1 virus and is being stockpiled by various countries for use in case of a pandemic.
But, current supplies of the necessary ingredient shikimik acid are limited, most now squeezed from star anise, the fruit of a slow-growing evergreen native to China and harvested only two months of the year.
Prices for the acid have skyrocketted from 45 dollars US to over 600 dollars US per kilogram in the past year, and supplies have become increasingly difficult to acquire as fear of a pandemic grows, Kiecken said.
In contrast, there is an abundant supply of coniferous species in Canada and elsewhere. Biolyse is in talks with the National Christmas Tree Association to collect up to 30 million more discarded Christmas trees in the United States, said vice-president of product development John Fulton.
"The acid in the needles is what turns the ground yellow or brown beneath the trees in the forest," Kiecken said.
Biolyse plans to sell the ingredient to companies and governments that are not bound by Roche's Tamiflu patents and wish to make generic versions of the drug. The company had applied to Roche to produce Tamiflu, but was denied.
Biolyse's first batch will be sold to India-based Cipla and used to manufacturer 100 million doses of the antiviral drug, enough for five million people for two weeks, Fulton said.
India has said it might not respect Roche's Tamiflu patent in a public health emergency.
Biolyse recently won a five-year court battle against US pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb Company over the rights to sell an inexpensive anti-cancer drug made from yew bush needles in Canada. Its Paclitaxel is used to fight the most aggressive forms of ovarian, lung and breast cancer. Bristol-Myers sells a similar drug under the name Taxol and accused Biolyse of infringing on its Canadian patents.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled six to three in favour of Biolyse mid-2005.
Its plant extraction facility currently employs 20 people, plus 100 seasonal harvestors who collect trees to make its anti-cancer drug.
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