Analytics and orbitides: Prairie Tide catches the wave

After 14 years of business development, patience and investment, Prairie Tide is on the rise. 

Almost 20 years ago, Bioriginal, a food and nutraceutical manufacturing company based in Saskatoon, asked University of Saskatchewan researcher Dr. Martin Reaney to determine why flax oil had a bitter taste. No one could have predicted the major discovery that would come out of solving that problem. The taste was caused by orbitides, bracelet-shaped peptides with untapped potential in pharmaceutical and nutraceutical applications.  

Reaney, Prairie Tide CEO, says, “The shape of orbitides makes them more stable than linear amino acids. They are more biologically active, because they last longer. They also bind really well with receptors that are often related to rapid cell division, which can block responses involved in inflammation, hormone stimulus, and the growth of certain cancer cells. We’re just beginning to understand all the ways they can be applied.” 

Bioriginal chose not to develop a peptide business and offered the rights to Reaney – and Prairie Tide Diversified Inc. was founded. Since then, Prairie Tide has developed an IP portfolio, including patents, that is necessary to protect its position and enable commercialization of flax cyclic peptides and a variety of other plant sources. Prairie Tide has been isolating and marketing flax orbitides to the cosmetic industry and sending samples to other R&D organizations to determine other applications for them.  

John Hyshka, Reaney’s business partner, saw an opportunity to grow the company’s revenue base and offer a needed service: providing product analysis to western Canadian nutraceutical and food companies. Hyshka says, “Very few labs focus on natural product and food ingredient companies. We saw the opportunity to focus on ‘authentomics’ – we work with food companies to ensure products are what they say they are.”  

Whether a company produces a product and wants to reassure its customers of its claims, or is buying ingredients that they want to authenticate, Prairie Tide Analytics can provide the testing to confirm it. Hyshka says, “We’re more than happy to talk to companies that want to confirm their ingredients are authentic.”  

The business currently spends two-thirds of its time on analytics and one-third on orbitide R&D. Hyshka says the other products are still in the development stage. “We’re close; we’re in negotiation with our cosmetic brokers for two products, and they have samples for testing.” 

Looking back on their journey with Prairie Tide, Hyshka and Reaney have two sets of advice for aspiring bioscience entrepreneurs. Hyshka advises having the cashflow required to make it through to milestones: “Develop a business plan that lets you know how much you need and find the right investors for your company. Make sure there’s a market before you invest. If your product needs regulatory approval, it will take years before you have that, so make sure you have a buyer.” 

Reaney says, “As a person who wasn’t aspiring to be an entrepreneur when I started this, marketing was a challenge. Find someone with the skillset that you lack. If you’re not a businessperson, find someone who is, and partner with them. Be humble and be willing to take advice.” 

Reaney credits Ag-West Bio for continuous support throughout Prairie Tide’s history. First was a key introduction at an Ag-West Bio event that led to their first client. Reaney says, “We received a loan from Ag-West, which is an obvious investment, but another important investment was the business advice and support we received at the same time. Offering expertise is one thing, but how they leveraged their local influence in the community on our behalf was another benefit.” 

Both Reaney and Hyshka credit community support as one of the key benefits of doing business in Saskatchewan. While distance from their key markets is something of a drawback, that is more than made up for by the proximity to agricultural land and expertise. Reaney says, “Saskatchewan is like ‘wine country’ for flax. There is a tremendous amount of knowledge and genetic material, plus farmers, breeders and seed growers to guarantee pedigree. We need very specific knowledge for what we’re working with, and the wherewithal to acquire material. Saskatchewan is well set up for that.” 

Reaney’s focus continues to be on the technology and the potential of getting that technology out to the world. “We’ve accomplished the total utilization of flax seeds. People grow flax to make oil; and the meal – the peptides, the proteins, the gums – used to be waste products that had very little value. We can provide a package of technologies that upcycles those waste products. Based on what we’ve found so far, the upcycling is good value – by making a non-bitter flax oil, we discovered peptides that are vastly more valuable than the oil itself.” 

Reaney sees the potential to develop similar utilization packages for other prairie commodities, such as barley, oats, canola and pulses, upcycling all the products available from them. 

True to his role in the partnership, Hyshka sees great potential in the businesses themselves. “Our vision is to have a separate analytical lab that services food and beverage, and a second business focused on orbitides. Within five years, we should have two separate companies.” 

Thank you to Prairie Tide for submitting the article.

Top photo: Flax seed close up

Thank you to Amber Shadow from Unsplash for the photo.

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