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Biomed
The Next Step
A tiny biomedical institute in Tampa finds itself at a crossroads.
In Tampa, non-profit Tampa Bay Research Institute focuses on finding cures for chronic and infectious diseases, including cancer. It employs about 20 full-time workers, including 10 research scientists. Co-founded in 1981 by Akiko Tanaka, its president, with $3 million in seed money from Showa University in Japan, the institute operates on a $1.6 million-a-year budget, relying mostly on grants from the National Institutes of Health.
Much of the grant money has been used to study the benefits of a pine cone extract that Tanaka says has the potential to prevent the spread of herpes, HIV and influenza and to help reduce cancerous tumors. The institute holds more than 10 patents on the extract and has written several peer-reviewed articles on it in scientific journals.
"The potential this will have is astronomical," says Tanaka, pointing to early results with mice and people who were able to take the extract for four years while the institute marketed it as an herbal supplement. She says the extract doubled the strength of mice's immune systems after the animals received the extract for several months. Lung cancer tumors in a 12-year-old boy shrank by 80% when he took the extract for two months along with chemotherapy. The institute has since taken the supplement off the market while it tries to win federal approval to use the extract as a vaccine or to fight cancer.
Tanaka is working with Taxol creator Robert Holton to develop a pill version to be used in clinical trials. NIH doesn't fund preventive drug trials in most cases, so the institute is trying to raise $6 million. Tanaka is also considering asking Gov. Jeb Bush for help.
At least one big pharmaceutical company has offered to buy the rights to the extract, but selling now, Tanaka says, would be giving up a gold mine. If preclinical trials prove the extract can save or extend lives and reduce pain, pharmaceutical companies will pay several hundred million dollars for the patents. Tanaka says that would go a long way toward funding future research at the non-profit center.
For now, Tanaka is hoping that Scripps will generate enough interest in biomedical research to get her institute noticed as well. "It's not the size of the institute, but the quality," she says.
