CANNABIS IS FIRM'S 'GATEWAY DRUG'

A reputation of any kind, even for a business, is hard to shake.

And when your company is the only federally licensed medical marijuana
producer in Canada, that's the first thing people think of when they
hear the company's name, says Brent Zettl, Prairie Plant Systems
Inc.'s president and CEO.

But providing cannabis to patients authorized by Health Canada isn't
the Saskatoon based company's only focus, even if sales of the
CanniMed herbal treatment account for between 60 and 65 per cent of
its revenue, Zettl says.

"It's kind of like our gateway drug, if I can use that term," he says
in an interview. "It's our gateway drug to these other compounds that
we're planning to have produced in plants."

For nearly 10 years, PPS has produced medical marijuana on a contract
basis for the federal government. Originally grown in the deep depths
of a decommissioned mine in Flin Flon, Man. -known unofficially as the
Ganja Mine -PPS moved its hydroponic operation out of the town on the
Saskatchewan border when the contract with the mine's owner ended last
summer.

PPS is still growing the marijuana for the government, but the
location of the operation must remain confidential under federal
regulations, Zettl says.

"North of the 49th and in between the Atlantic and the Pacific and
Arctic oceans, that's where it is," he says.

Although the high-profile, legal and still-controversial practice of
growing medical marijuana is what PPS is best known for, Zettl hopes
the distinction will change over time.

"I think a lot of people forget this is a contract we bid on," he
says. "But we had a bigger purpose in mind. ... Although it's our
reputation at this point, we're trying to change that."

The company, along with the Plant Biotechnology Institute, has
designed a plant to produce a therapeutic enzyme known as adenosine
deaminase, or ADA. The enzyme, Zettl explains, is part of the body's
immune system and is deficient in people with severe combined
immunodeficiency disease, a condition often referred to as bubble-boy
syndrome.

People with the disease must undergo enzyme-replacement therapy, Zettl
says, and at the moment, most of the ADA used in the treatment is
purified from cow spleens.

PPS's ADA takes the animal out of the equation.

The cannabis side of the business, he adds, has helped PPS move
forward with its therapeutic enzyme studies, with growing conditions,
industry standards and pharmaceutical credibility supporting its
scientific work.