Burcon Expands Protein Applications
Burcon and its license and development partner, ADM, are working together to produce quantities of Puratein and Supertein sufficient for further applications work and studies required for regulatory recognition.
"Our team developed innovative modifications to our protein extraction technology, which have the potential to open up some exciting large-market food and beverage applications," stated Johann F. Tergesen, Burcon's President & COO who added, "As a result of these advancements, we are once again in a position to press forward on the regulatory recognition process for Puratein and Supertein."
In the U.S., Canada, and Europe, new food ingredient products, which have heretofore not been consumed by humans in the amounts proposed under marketing efforts, must be assessed together with documentation supporting the new products' safety. Key components of this documentation are toxicology feeding studies.
These studies are conducted with the product which will ultimately be marketed and which is produced using the defined final manufacturing process. Since both the process by which a new ingredient is produced and the resultant toxicology feeding trial results are connected, the toxicology feeding trials for Puratein and Supertein could only be conducted after Burcon and ADM had determined the optimized extraction process by which the proteins will be produced.
Although Burcon has demonstrated to ADM the ability to produce proteins with improved physical and functional properties, the production thereof to-date has been limited to a small pilot-scale level. The two companies' development plans dictate that the new process now needs to be refined and optimized at an even larger scale in order to produce the samples sufficient for large-scale applications testing as well as for the important regulatory feeding trial studies.
As such, Burcon and ADM have already scheduled additional large pilot-scale production tests at third-party facilities and are continuing research and development to improve and optimize Burcon's protein extraction process. The recently developed modifications are very encouraging, suggesting large-market food and beverage applications and imply that the parties can now re-initiate the regulatory recognition process. However, no assurance can be given: that Burcon and ADM's research and development activities will be successful, that the large pilot-sale production tests will result in suitable products, or that regulatory recognition of Burcon's proteins will ever be achieved.
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