Services

Phytopharmacon (PPI) has excellent net work to source bulk plant extracts, PPI maintains a greenhouse and the Company is equipped to perform laboratory, pilot and large-scale extraction of plants. Kilogram quantities can be readily produced for chemical standardization, animal testing and pre-clinical studies.

PhytoPharmacon offer the following services:

  • Growing Plants (Agronomy)
  • Pilot Scale Extraction
  • Large Scale Extraction

Laboratory, Research and Assay Development

PhytoPharmacon is a contract research and drug discovery organization that provides a variety of enabling services including development of cell-based assays, cell isolation and differentiation. PPL has extensive pharmaceutical and industry experience in biochemistry and cell biology enables our laboratory to utilize capabilities to provide contract biology and biochemistry services for cell-based assays, tissue culture and stem cells, protein purification, characterization and analysis. We have purified native proteins to homogeneity isolated from tissue as well as recombinant proteins from bacteria and mammalian cells. Further, PPI senior discovery scientists can be made available to recommend strategies and research plans on consulting basis.

HIGHLIGHT OF SERVICES

  • Cell-Based Assay
  • Cell Culture
  • Bioassay Development
  • ELISA Test
  • Enzyme Assay
  • Antimicrobial Screening Analysis
  • High Throughout Screening Platform

IDEAL COMPANIES FOR OUR SERVICES

  • Drug Discovery Companies without wet lab capabilities
  • Cosmetic Industry
  • Nutraceutical/Dietary Supplements/Medical food/Functional food/Botanical Drugs Agrochemical Industry
  • Pharmaceutical
  • Diagnostic
  • Legal
  • Biotechnology
  • Agricultural

CELL-BASED ASSAY, BIOASSAY DEVELOPMENT

More than 20 years experience in cell biology and cell culture enables our staff at PPI to employ both the scientific approach and the "art" of cell culture to your projects. We can recommend strategies and provide contract services for cell-based assays, tissue culture, cell culture optimization, and bioassays development.

Cell-based assay or bioassay development can range from cytotoxic assays including apoptosis to cell proliferation and metabolic assays. Cell-based assay development can also include high throughput screening assays and other custom bioassays used to characterize drug stability for GLP GMP lot release, drug potency and for drug purification and production support. Mechanisms of action, such as receptor binding, receptor activation, cell signaling, drug internalization and subcellular localization can be delineated in cell-based assays following treatment with your leads. Bioassay development can encompass testing of conditioned medium, cell lysates or whole cells in a variety of formats including ELISA and immunohistochemical methods. Our scientists can grow and differentiate stem cells as well as provide assay development to monitor stem cell differentiation using specific gene expression.

  • Assay development High throughput screening assays:
    • Calcium flux assay for screening G-protein coupled receptor targets
    • Inhibition of inflammatory mediators: prostaglandins, iNOS and COX-2.
    • Inhibition of transcription factor nuclear factor-kB, activation of Nerf2
    • Cell signaling assays
  • Growth and differentiation of stem cells
  • Cytotoxicity assays including apoptosis to cell proliferation and metabolic assays with a panel of tumor and other cell lines.
  • Experience with natural products with sourcing capabilities.

ELISA TEST, ENZYME ASSAY, PROTEIN PRODUCTION, PURIFICATION

ELISA assay development and validation is frequently needed for drug purification, stability or lot release. We can develop your ELISA assay using polyclonal or monoclonal antibodies supplied by you or use the antibodies we develop here at PPI. Our scientists will consult with you about your final use for the ELISA assay and discuss various formats that can be designed into you assay development. Should you have an ELISA assay already developed and wish to have our scientists use it to test drug metabolism, drug stability or lot release we will employ your protocols.

  • Develop or in-source a commercially available ELISA test to quantify specific proteins or small molecules for a cell based assay.
  • Develop colorimetric and fluorescent-based enzyme assays; perform substrate specificity and inhibition kinetics.
  • Optimize protein production, protein purification and analytical analysis or follow a protein purification strategy developed by you.

ANTIMICROBIAL SCREENING

PPI conducts a wide range of tests and studies for clients in the medical, environmental and industrial sectors. We provide antimicrobial screening support for the development of novel compounds, toxicity evaluations, screening of organisms for metabolites with biological activity, and other tests designed to meet client’s particular needs.

PPI is a leader in performing antimicrobial assays with novel agents. These agents are tested against clinically important microorganisms exhibiting either a single- or multiple- antibiotic resistance pattern. This service is tremendously significant because of the increasing spread of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms and their threat to the effectiveness of currently available treatments for certain infectious diseases.

  • Mechanism based and other screening assays for bacteria, yeast and molds.
  • Microbial analysis: coliforms, total bacterial count, yeast and mold counts, etc.
  • Ames test.

HIGH THROUGHPUT SCREENING PLATFORM

PPI offers several solutions to address the problems and perform high-throughput screening assays. The company uses multiple cell line offerings that allow one to run a panel of counter screen assays for a desired target and incorporate studies of toxic receptors, as it is an inducible and titratable system. At PPI we are trying out an intensive parallel approach, where we apply a lot of resources upfront including assay development, screening more focused libraries. Our screening, assay development, and chemistry groups work hand in hand during this process. The hope is to collapse the timeline and enable quicker lead decisions. An additional goal is to interpret compound effects from multiple assays that use diverse technologies to gain a comprehensive picture of a compound’s mode-of-action.

The unique automation available at PPI enables multiple screens to be efficiently carried out with a relatively small personnel team. A single screen team (one Sr. scientist and one Technician) is sufficient to run robotic system. Thus, this team would typically handle in the region of 40-50,000 assays per week including the high throughput screen, data analysis and initial lead follow-up (IC 50’s and cytotoxicity controls). Our system have been screened against the last five years in which over 250,000 compounds/extracts have been screened against several targets as part of our in-house and client’s drug discovery program.

TOLL PROCESSING

Agronomy & Extraction Capabilities:

PhytoPhrmacon has worked on specialty crops for over three years both in North Carolina fields and greenhouses PhytoPharmacon has extensive experience in sourcing and growing plants as well as extraction and down stream processing of botanical products. Our personnel has engaged in research and development of several new crops that produces a specialty chemicals.

Pilot scale and large scale extractions:

PhytoPharmacon has pilot-scale as well as large scale processing capabilities. We have successfully scaled up from one acre to ten acres of specialty crops, for essential oils, oleoresins, and other solvent extractable phytochemicals. Large scale ex-tractors include, steam distillation units, slurry extractors and super critical fluid extractors.

Super Critical Fluid Extractor:

PhytoPharmacon has Super Critical Fluid (SCF) extractors using liquid carbon dioxide, with 500 Metric tons of raw material capacity. We have extensive experience in extracting the botanicals used for dietary supplements as well as oleoresins and concretes. We can source botanicals and extract herbs as per client’s requirement and specifications. The facility has 2 X 300 liters extractors, two separators 250 liters and 125 liters respectively.

PhytoPharmacon Offers:

  • Crop scale up, fermentations, down-stream processing, and supercritical fluid extraction for bulk chemicals and standardized extracts for R&D and manufacturing purposes.
  • In addition to facilities in NC, we also offer one of the unique agronomy and processing facilities in South Asia for our customers.
  • The frost-free subtropical climate in South Asia helps to grow and maintain biannual and perennial crops.