Phyton identifies, develops and commercializes valuable plant based compounds using its proprietary plant cell culture technology. This technology involves the selection of elite cell limes from plant sources, their propagation in an appropriate nutrient rich medium, and the synthesis of a desired compound--often purer than but otherwise identical to the compound as it can be extracted from the whole plant.
The Company's business strategy is to position itself as a leader in the development, production and commercialization of phytotherapeutics. Recognizing that it is expensive and time consuming to establish full fledged clinical and marketing program for therapeutic compounds, the Company has entered into collaborations with major pharmaceutical companies and has adopted a two-pronged business approach. In the short term, the Company is leveraging its technology and core competence base to collaborate with corporate partners to develop cost effective cell culture processes for already identified plant based compounds. This permits the Company to maximize its current strengths and provides the opportunity for early revenue generation. The second component of the Company's strategy is to participate in the "upstream" end of pharmaceutical business through cell culture-based discovery and developments of new compounds.
The Company has targeted TaxolŽ to be its first compound and established a collaborative arrangement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company("BMS"), from which it is receiving substantial financial support. . .