Old Christmas Trees to
be used to make Avian Bird Flu Vaccine
December 26th, 2005
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Discarded
Christmas tree |
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A Canadian company, Biolyse Pharma
Corp., have plans to use up to half a million used Christmas trees in
Ontario to extract a chemical found in the needles to help manufacturer
vaccine for the bird flu. Shikimic acid can be harvested from the
needles of pine, spruce and fir trees. The acid is usually harvested
from the star anise tree in China.
The cost of the acid has increased
in cost dramatically and cost $600 Canadian dollars per kilogram. The
reason for the increase in cost has been the time it takes to grow the
star anise tree. It can take eight years to grow and there are only two
months are able to be harvested. The goal of Biolyse will be to sell
the acid to companies or governments that do not have to follow the
Roche’s Tamiflu patents and can manufacturer a generic version of the
drug.
Biolyse has also found substitute
sources for a cancer drug paclitaxel. Instead of extracting the chemical
from a rare Pacific yew bush, they found a common yew bush in Canada
that had the same chemical. They did get sued for patent infringement
but they won the case.
By
Nicole Wilson
Best Syndication Staff Writer
Keywords and
common misspellings: Tamyflu vaccination tamilflu generic version of
Tamiflu Shikimic acid shickmic |
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