SemBioSys Genetics Inc. was a development stage

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

company. It utilized its patented safflower

pharming Pharming is a cyberattack intended to redirect a website's traffic to another, fake site by installing a malicious program on the computer. Pharming can be conducted either by changing the hosts file on a victim's computer or by exploitation of a ...

platform to develop and make

proteins Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...

and oils for the

nutraceutical A nutraceutical or bioceutical is a pharmaceutical alternative which claims physiological benefits. In the US, "nutraceuticals" are largely unregulated, as they exist in the same category as dietary supplements and food additives by the FDA, unde ...

, functional food and beverage, and

pharmaceutical A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and re ...

industries. A

University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...

spin-off (1994), SemBioSys became a publicly traded firm. Investors had included Bay City Capital, the

Business Development Bank of Canada The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC; french: Banque de développement du Canada) is a Crown corporation and national development bank wholly owned by the Government of Canada, mandated to help create and develop Canadian businesses thro ...

Dow AgroSciences Dow AgroSciences LLC was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dow Chemical Company specializing in not only agricultural chemicals such as pesticides, but also seeds and biotechnology solutions. The company was based in Indianapolis, Indiana, in ...

(a Canadian subsidiary of The

Dow Chemical Company The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world. Dow manufactures plastic ...

), Royal Bank Ventures Inc. (now RBC Capital Partners), the

, Ventures West Capital Ltd., and Dr.

Maurice Moloney Professor Maurice M. Moloney is a research biologist and biotechnology businessman. He is the former Executive Director and CEO of the Global Institute for Food Security at the University of Saskatchewan, which he left late in 2018. At the Globa ...

. In May 2012, SemBioSys terminated its operations.Press release May 15, 2012: SemBioSys Announces First Quarter Results and Provides Update on Activities
The company's strategy was to partner with other companies to enable the commercialization of products. Its lead pharmaceutical products under development were

biosimilar insulin An insulin analog ( also called an insulin analogue) is any of several types of medical insulin that are altered forms of the hormone insulin, different from any occurring in nature, but still available to the human body for performing the same a ...

and Apo AI(Milano). In a phase I/II clinical trial, SemBioSys demonstrated that its safflower produced

insulin Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the ''INS'' gene. It is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabolism o ...

(SBS-1000) is bioequivalent to

humulin As a medication, insulin is any pharmaceutical preparation of the protein hormone insulin that is used to treat high blood glucose. Such conditions include type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, gestational diabetes, and complications of diabetes s ...

, a commercially available insulin. In 2007, SemBioSys formed a subsidiary, Botaneco Specialty Ingredients Inc., dedicated to the commercialization of SemBioSys’ products for cosmetic,

personal care Personal care or toiletries are consumer products used in personal hygiene, personal grooming or for beautification. Products Personal care includes products as diverse as cleansing pads, colognes, cotton swabs, cotton pads, deodorant, eye lin ...

and prescription topical dermatology products. Botaneco produced, marketed, and sold its products under the brand name Hydresia. In October 2009, Botaneco merged with Quebec City-based Advitech, a health sciences and technology company. In October 2011, SemBioSys signed a collaboration agreement with

Tasly Pharmaceuticals Tasly () is a Chinese pharmaceutical company based in the city of Tianjin.About Tasly
(page visited on 29 Ma ...

Tianjin Tianjin (; ; Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Tientsin (), is a municipality and a coastal metropolis in Northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the nine national central cities in Mainland China, with a total popul ...

(China) and its wholly owned subsidiary Tasly U.S. Tasly is of China's top five largest producers of traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs). Upon government approval, a new company called Tasly-SemBioSys Bio-Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. was incorporated in

, China. The new company was structured as a Sino-Foreign Equity Joint Venture and seeks to develop and commercialize a variety of products including pharmaceutical, functional foods, and

nutraceuticals A nutraceutical or bioceutical is a pharmaceutical alternative which claims physiological benefits. In the US, "nutraceuticals" are largely unregulated, as they exist in the same category as dietary supplements and food additives by the FDA, und ...

for China and the world. However SemBioSys did not transfer any intellectual property to the joint ventureSenBioSys News Release 2012-04-04 07:31 ET
Quote: "This partnership has not resulted in any financial benefit to SemBioSys to date and, as a result, the company has not transferred any intellectual property to the newly formed joint venture as of this date." and Tasly terminated the agreement.

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

SemBioSys WebsiteTasly Website
Biotechnology companies of Canada

See also

References

External links