EDMONTON, Alberta—Ceapro Inc. entered into an R&D collaboration agreement with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) as part of its expansion plan. The project will be undertaken at the NRC Institute for Nutrisciences and Health (INH) in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Under the initial collaboration agreement between the parties, several studies are expected to be completed over the next year on Ceapro's core ingredients, including avenanthramides, beta glucan and peptides.
Under this agreement Ceapro will work with the NRC-INH to complete several in vitro and ex vivo assays on the current suite of Ceapro products, as well as prototype samples of new products, to provide valuable data to support the sales and marketing of Ceapro products.
"This is an exciting time for Ceapro and we expect to have completed these assays over the next year", said David Fielder, chief scientific officer of Ceapro. "Several of these assays will target new therapeutic indications that can greatly enhance the value of our products and we are very excited to be part of this collaboration.” Innovation PEI is supporting this collaboration with a repayable contribution of $100,000 and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is providing a non repayable contribution of $50,000. Ceapro has leased lab space in the NRC-INH facility in support of this collaboration and future product development work.
Ceapro also provided an update on additional corporate and R&D activities:
- Ceapro has recently begun early stage product development work to examine the use of supercritical extraction technology to produce existing and new products as well as the subsequent downstream purification of avenanthramides utilizing other technologies. The preliminary work evaluating optimum extraction conditions for this project will be done in Edmonton at Ceapro's lab where Ceapro will perform trials utilizing a pilot scale supercritical unit. Ceapro will further scale up the results and evaluate the subsequent downstream extraction of avenanthramides at the Food Technology Centre. Ceapro has received approval for a non-repayable contribution of up to $99,900 for this project.
- Following some preliminary growing trials of its exclusively licensed spearmint variety in Southern Alberta, Ceapro has expanded growing trials to three other sites, two locations in Ontario and one in Prince Edward Island. The active ingredients from this plant are expected to target multiple segments in the personal care and cosmeceutical markets.
- Ceapro has begun formulating and testing its second generation products with an all-natural preservative as well as increased potency of the active components. This would allow Ceapro to have a new line of products for the all-natural segment, reduce packaging and shipping costs, as well as provide new market opportunities.
- Ceapro has been reviewing options for the sales and marketing of its products and has been in discussions with multiple parties over the last several months who are interested in working with Ceapro and Ceapro products. "Our goal is to get significant global exposure for our products and we are currently assessing numerous alternatives to reach that goal", said Gilles Gagnon. "We will announce any agreements in this regard as they are consummated".