ST. CATHARINES -- The clinical setting inside Biolyse Pharma Corp. resembles the space-plague movie The Andromeda Strain.
Except this St. Catharines firm is developing what could be a real miracle drug for a horrible earthly disease.
In lab tests, the as-yet-unnamed drug so far seems to kill all cancer cells; if it continues to perform as well in human trials, it could revolutionize cancer treatment, generate billions of dollars for Biolyse and create hundreds of new jobs in St. Catharines.
Biolyse executive vice-president John Fulton is more blunt: "I've heard talk in the labs referring to this as the Holy Grail of cancer drugs."
Inside the complex, glassed-in rooms are staffed by white-gowned researchers.
Strange machines whiz and rotate as raw materials are refined into life-saving potions.
On a tour yesterday, company production manager Claude Mercure spoke about the new injectible medicine in development that is made from a common flower.
Most aspects of its source and production are being kept confidential by the company.
But in tests so far, the drug is a dynamo.
"It has a selectivity to kill cancer cells and has no toxicity to healthy cells," Mercure said.
"This is what makes it extremely interesting, because there's no other drug out there -- or in research, or known -- that can do this.
"This is pretty unique," he added. "We're gung-ho on this and I've been working on it for close to four years."
Mercure said if trials and government approvals go their way, in about five years -- or maybe less -- Biolyse could be selling the chemo drug.
Biolyse, a research-oriented company founded in Gaspe, Que. in 1980, relocated to St. Catharines in 1999.
Its researchers previously discovered the chemo drug paclitaxel could be made from the needles of the Canadian yew bush, and has been producing that injectable drug since the early 1990s.
Biolyse now supplies about 70% of the Canadian market for paclitaxel, which is used primarily to treat lung, ovarian and breast cancers.
In 1995, Biolyse won an epic court battle with American pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb, which made its earlier version of the drug called Taxol.
The Supreme Court of Canada ultimately allowed Biolyse to sell paclitaxel.
While most chemotherapy uses a toxic approach to treatment, Mercure said the new drug is based on molecules that are similar to those a developing fetus uses.
With this new drug, Biolyse researchers have zeroed-in on plant compounds that use the mechanism inside the cell that controls its growth and distribution.
So far, it's proven effective in cancer cell cultures and on rodent testing.
"We're modifying the compound, where it would be easily acceptable by the human body," Mercure said. "And I believe we have done this, but it's very preliminary.
"We're steaming ahead to investigate this in (human) clinical trials."
Following the Phase 1 trial, which takes up to four months, there is a Phase 2.
That bigger trial examines safety and the effectiveness of the drug. All phases are approved by Health Canada and the second could happen in the next 12 to 18 months.
Meanwhile, Biolyse is working with the Ontario provincial Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to help grow source plants for the drug at three different sites.
"We're working with Biolyse on the production aspects for initial studies of this crop," confirmed Jim Todd, a transition crop specialist with the ministry.
dfraser@stcatharinesstandard.ca
