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Vancouver company plans to breed medical maggots

A Vancouver life sciences company that specializes in niche therapies is hoping to get Health Canada’s approval to start breeding and selling maggots to Canadian hospitals for cleaning wounds.
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Maggots

A Vancouver life sciences company that specializes in niche therapies is hoping to get Health Canada’s approval to start breeding and selling maggots to Canadian hospitals for cleaning wounds.

Superna Life Sciences has struck a collaboration agreement with United States-based Monarch Labs, which breeds medical maggots for the treating of wounds that are hard to disinfect using conventional therapies.

People with diabetes and elderly patients with pressure wounds are two demographics in which infections can be particularly difficult to treat, and the rise of drug resistant bacteria has made the problem even more challenging.

“These are two huge demographic bubbles we’re facing,” Tom D'Orazio, Superna co-founder and CEO, told Business in Vancouver.

“Oftentimes, especially the diabetics, they’re facing potentially having an amputated limb. If the maggots can clean the wound out, often they can heal and avoid the amputation.”

Maggots were used throughout the ages in folk medicine. The rise of drug resistant bacteria has prompted the renaissance of the medical maggot. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration approved their use in both humans and animals on a prescription-only basis.

Medical maggots are bred in a special sterile environment and are introduced to wounds, where they eat away dead tissue.

Wound care nurses at Burnaby Hospital and Vancouver Coastal Health in North Vancouver are already using maggots bred by Monarch Labs.

Providing it gets Health Canada’s approval, the collaboration deal Superna has struck with Monarch would give Superna the rights to breed and sell Monarch’s medical maggots in Canada.

“We believe Health Canada will want them produced in Canada,” D'Orazio said. “The reason is it’s a much more secure supply because they literally have to be used within 72 hours of production.”

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@nbennett_biv