Chemaphor’s technology is based on the idea that carotenoid compounds, such as beta-carotene and lycopene, are actually nutritional sources of a diverse family of non-vitamin A carotenoid oxidation products that possess hitherto unrecognized biological activities.
Technology Platform
The Chemaphor technology and the enterprise itself are the direct result of a project initiated in the early 1990’s by Graham Burton and Janusz Daroszewski at the National Research Council of Canada’s (NRC) Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences. The goal of the project was to explore a new, fundamentally different insight into the potential nutritional benefit of a class of compounds known as carotenoids, which are typified by such well-known substances as beta-carotene and lycopene. The latter compounds are responsible for the characteristic orange and red colours of carrots and tomatoes, respectively.
Although beta-carotene and some other related, but not all, carotenoid compounds are sources of vitamin A, resulting from a very specific oxidation process, We believe all carotenoid compounds are potential nutritional sources of a diverse family of non-vitamin A carotenoid oxidation products that possess hitherto unrecognized biological activities. Many such carotenoid oxidation products are found pre-formed in plants and many of them inevitably become part of the human diet, as well as the natural diet of many animals.
The NRC project provided strong proof-of principle support for this idea and a company (formerly Occell Inc.) subsequently was spun off, with the goal to exploit the inherent spectrum of potential benefits and untapped commercial opportunities of carotenoid oxidation products.
During its first years of existence, the Company focused largely on preclinical development of the pharmaceutical potential of selected carotenoid oxidation products, as non-toxic, cancer drug candidates.
With the inception of Chemaphor, the Company has expanded its focus to exploit the broader discoveries of the carotenoid oxidation compound platform, combined the strength in chemistry to develop a range of diversified risk and revenue product opportunities. The opportunities centre on two major products, OxBC and OCL-1, targeted at non-pharmaceutical and pharmaceutical applications, respectively.
The funds from the Chemaphor amalgamation transaction in 2005 allowed the Company to formally commit to the launch of a new, non-pharmaceutical business built around a nutrisciences program that is primarily focused on Chemaphor’s novel, proprietary OxBC product.
The nutrisciences program proceeds from our simple but fundamental insight that ubiquitous carotenoid micronutrients, such as beta-carotene and lycopene, owe their various biological activities to products formed by reaction of the carotenoid compounds with oxygen, not to the carotenoid compounds themselves. Many such carotenoid oxidation products are found pre-formed in plants and many of them are potentially available as part of the human diet, as well as the natural diet of many animals.
OxBC is a proprietary mixture of compounds derived from beta-carotene, capturing a representative cross-section of the spectrum of numerous carotenoid oxidation products that occur naturally in plants. A variety of tests have shown that OxBC has various beneficial biological activities.
In 2004 Chemaphor discovered that OxBC promotes growth and enhances feed conversion efficiency in food animals. This discovery has been corroborated independently through a collaborative study carried out by industrial partners.
Introduction to Carotenoids
The Significance of Carotenoid Oxidation
Intellectual Property