CONTRACT EXTENDED BEFORE GOV'T CUTS

SASKATOON (SNN) -- The federal Conservative government may have
slashed research funding for medical marijuana earlier this month,
but Prairie Plant Systems Inc., the Saskatoon company that has the
contract to grow pot for approved medical users, was not negatively
impacted.

In fact, company president Brent Zettl says a one-year extension of
the contract to grow the marijuana at a secure underground growth
chamber located in a Flin Flon mine workings was signed Oct. 1. It
actually calls for a doubling of the volume for the coming year and
more revenue for his company.

"At this stage of the game we're supplying about 300 to 325 people on
a monthly basis who have an exemption for medicinal purposes who have
a medical condition that grants them that exemption."

The number of patients gaining that exemption is growing so the legal
medical marijuana program is now close to running out of supply, he
said.

"We're shipping out somewhere between 32 and 35 kilograms a month and
we currently produce about 20," he said.

Zettl says the one-year extension of the federal contract will
provide revenues of $2.1 million to Prairie Plants compared to an
original base contract of $1.1 million.

"From our standpoint, it's also a signal to the rest of the country
that the product is being accepted and it is being taken up by
patients who find it beneficial," he said. "It's a statement."

In the first year of the contract, some of the pot produced was much
higher than the federal program wanted, because Prairie Plant's
original seed source was pot seized by police. However, Zettl said
his company is now consistently producing marijuana to meet contract
requirements with a tetra-hydro-cannibol (THC) level of 12.5 per cent
(plus or minus 1.5 per cent).

"In our case, it has to meet the quality control test," he said.

In an interview at the opening ceremonies of the new head office and
laboratory building for Prairie Plants located off Highway 16 about
three kilometres east of Boychuk Drive, Zettl said the contract to
grow medical marijuana has raised his company's profile and been
successful in giving his firm a "segue into the plant-made
pharmaceutical industry as a whole."

During his speech at the opening, Zettl announced that the next big
contract his biopharmaceutical division will involve using plants to
grow a vaccine to prevent hepatitis C. That vaccine was developed by
the Vaccine Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO).