AntoXa

Life-saving biodefense solutions

Warren Whitehead

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Warren Whitehead is a Certified Management Accountant who has held several senior financial management positions with pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms. He is the former CFO of Arius Research Inc., an anti-cancer antibody company (acquired by Roche in 2008), and former CFO of Labopharm Inc. (2000 to 2006) where he led several rounds of financing, including a cross-border NASDAQ offering. Prior positions include CFO of Resolution Pharmaceuticals Inc. and finance and business development at Glaxo Canada (now GlaxoSmithKline).

Mr. Whitehead holds an MBA from the University of Windsor.

Study shows antibody’s efficacy against ricin

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AntoXa is working with Defence Research & Development Canada (DRDC) to develop and produce a plant-made antibody, PhD9, to protect against ricin exposure, a program that has received more than $400,000 (CDN) from the Government of Canada since 2014.

Ricin is a naturally occurring protein from Ricinus communis. It is extremely toxic to humans when inhaled or injected and is considered a high bioterrorism risk for the public. Ricin is listed as a Category B threat agent by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention due to its ease of production, worldwide availability, relative stability and extreme lethality.

There is currently no antidote against ricin poisoning. It acts very quickly and leaves a short window for administering therapeutic antibodies.

The PhD9 antibody drug candidate developed by DRDC and produced using AntoXa’s vivoXPRESS® system prevents ricin from penetrating cells. DRDC conducted in vitro and in vivo studies that found the plant-made version of the antibody showed therapeutic efficacy against ricin intoxication that was comparable to hD9 produced using mammalian cell technology. The findings were presented at the Antibody Engineering and Therapeutics Conference in December 2015.

“We’re very encouraged by the initial study results for the plant-produced anti-ricin antibody,” said Dr. Don Stewart, AntoXa President and CEO. “We believe that plants hold the key to cost-effective, large-scale production of antidotes for ricin and other potential bioterrorism threats.”

 

Antibodies for Ebola

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Antibodies produced using the vivoXPRESS® biopharmaceutical manufacturing system have been shown to neutralize the Sudan strain of Ebola as well as antibodies produced using other systems, according to analyses performed by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) with funding support and technical advisory services from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP).

Building upon the USAMRIID project, our team worked with University of New Mexico scientists to advance Ebola research and improve existing vaccines by inducing more effective immune responses to infection. The project employed the vivoXPRESS® system to express glycoproteins found on Filoviridae, the family of viruses that cause Ebola and Marburg disease, two severe and often fatal viral hemorrhagic fevers that afflict humans and non-human primates.

Learn more about AntoXa’s product pipeline.

Countering chemical attacks

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AntoXa and the Government of Canada are co-developing butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) as a next-generation therapeutic and prophylactic countermeasure to organophosphate toxins such as sarin and soman.

BuChE is a naturally occurring plasma enzyme that provides broad-spectrum protection against all nerve agents. Purified human BChE has been proven efficacious in animal models; however, its development has been limited by relatively low production yield compared to very high cost as well as the inherent risk of human pathogen transmission from the plasma derived product. AntoXa has produced a high-yield, low-cost recombinant BChE using the vivoXPRESS® platform and successfully evaluated the safety of the product in an animal model.

Read more about AntoXa’s product pipeline.

Neutralizing ricin

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AntoXa is using the vivoXPRESS® system to produce an innovator antibody (PhD9) being studied by Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) as an antidote to ricin exposure.

Ricin is a naturally occurring toxin from the Castorbean plant. It is considered a category B threat agent by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention due to its accessibility, ease of production and extreme lethality. No therapeutic antibody or vaccine is currently available to counteract its deadly effects. The PhD9 antibody drug candidate developed by DRDC prevents ricin from penetrating cells.

DRDC has conducted in vitro and in vivo studies that found the plant-made version of the antibody showed therapeutic efficacy against ricin intoxication that was comparable to hD9 produced using mammalian cell technology. The findings were presented at the Antibody Engineering and Therapeutics Conference in December 2015.

Learn more about AntoXa’s product pipeline.

About Us

Plant-made biopharmaceuticals for a safer world. AntoXa Corporation is a Canadian biopharmaceutical company developing medical countermeasures to protect military and civilian personnel from biological and chemical agents that might be used in terrorist attacks, as well as outbreaks of naturally ...
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vivoXPRESS® MANUFACTURING SYSTEM
The tobacco-plant-based vivoXPRESS® manufacturing platform offers several advantages over the mammalian and bacterial cell culture systems used to produce most recombinant protein pharmaceuticals. Here’s how it works.

BioPharming Info Centre

Biopharming, also known as plant molecular farming, refers to the use of genetically modified plants to produce a wide range of pharmaceuticals and industrial products. See our Biopharming Info Centre to Learn more about the science and history of using plants to produce complex therapeutic proteins.