SemBioSys Genetics Inc. was a development stage

agricultural Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created f ...

biotechnology Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that involves the integration of natural sciences and Engineering Science, engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms and parts thereof for products and services. Specialists ...

company. It utilized its patented

safflower Safflower (''Carthamus tinctorius'') is a highly branched, herbaceous, thistle-like annual plant in the family Asteraceae. It is one of the world's oldest crops; today, it is commercially cultivated for vegetable oil extracted from the seeds. ...

pharming Pharming is a cyberattack intended to redirect a website's traffic to another, fake site by installing a malicious program on the victim's computer in order to gain access to it. Pharming can be conducted either by changing the hosts file on a vi ...

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, re ...

and

oils An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturat ...

for the

nutraceutical Nutraceutical is a terminology evolved scientifically & also through marketing which is used to imply a pharmaceutical effect from plant extracts, compounds, food products which have efficacy and therapeutic influence on clinical outcomes and patien ...

functional food A functional food is a food claimed to have an additional benefit beyond just nutrition (often one related to health promotion or disease prevention) by modifying the horticulture, cultivation of the native food or by food additive, adding ingr ...

and

beverage A drink or beverage is a liquid intended for human consumption. In addition to their basic function of satisfying thirst, drinks play important roles in human culture. Common types of drinks include plain drinking water, milk, juice, smoothie ...

, and

pharmaceutical Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, 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 ...

industries. A

University of Calgary {{Infobox university , name = University of Calgary , image = University of Calgary coat of arms without motto scroll.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms , former ...

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; ) is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation and national development bank wholly owned by the Government of Canada, mandated to help create and develop Canadian businesses through financing ...

Dow AgroSciences Dow AgroSciences Limited liability company, 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 ...

(a Canadian subsidiary of The

Dow Chemical Company The Dow Chemical Company is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company was among the three largest chemical producers in the world in 2021. It is the operating subsidiary of Dow Inc., ...

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

, Ventures West Capital Ltd., and Dr. Maurice Moloney. 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 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 insulin (''INS)'' gene. It is the main Anabolism, anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabol ...

(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 ...

, 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 products are consumer products which are applied on various external parts of the body such as skin, hair, nails, lips, external genital and anal areas, as well as teeth and mucous membrane of the oral cavity, in order to make ...

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 of

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

(China) and its wholly owned subsidiary Tasly U.S. Tasly is of China's top five largest producers of

traditional Chinese medicines Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. A large share of its claims are pseudoscientific, with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence of effectiveness or ...

(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 Nutraceutical is a terminology evolved scientifically & also through marketing which is used to imply a drug, pharmaceutical effect from plant extracts, compounds, food products which have efficacy and therapeutic influence on clinical outcomes and ...

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