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Primate Products Inc. |
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March 7, 2016 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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Life Sciences Support for Biomedical Research and Preclinical Studies Offering Equipment and Live Macaque Monkeys |
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CEO
Primate Products Inc.
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – March 7, 2016
CEOCFO: Mr. Houghton, would you tell us about Primate Products? Mr. Houghton: Our focus is life sciences support for preclinical application. We have live animals and the equipment to support biomedical research and preclinical studies that requires accessing primates as animal models for advancing human health.
CEOCFO: Are people coming to you for both the animals and the equipment or are those two separate markets? Mr. Houghton: They are two separate markets but they overlap. Normally we would be dealing with two different aspects of the same company, for example if it is big pharma or one or the other industries we might be talking to two entirely different groups, one involved in equipment and the other involved in live animals.
CEOCFO: Would you give us an idea of how primates are utilized? Mr. Houghton: Development of new drugs or identification of environmental toxins or any of the things that you would want to use an animal for before you would expose a person. For example, as with polio vaccine and virtually every disease that has come after the polio effort, monkeys have been involved in at some level. Applicable to current events with the zika virus, primates and other models will play a pivotal role in defining and understanding the pathogenesis of the virus, for establishing better diagnostics for detecting infection, and in vaccine development for disease prevention.
CEOCFO: Are different types of monkeys more applicable for certain types of research. Do people come to you knowing what they want or do you guide them? Mr. Houghton: Occasionally we will interact at that level but mostly these are sophisticated users. By the time you would get to using a primate in research, you have already been through two or three other species, mice, rats, rabbits, dogs, pigs and any number of tissue culture levels. The last stage before we go into clinical trials is to go to a primate and there is a very good reason for that. Many drugs seem to be effective in lower animals but for some reason when it comes to the step between rats and monkeys or rats and humans, the primate needs to be there because we will see things that we do not see in lower animals like mice or dogs. In terms of species, they are almost all macaques, but they are mainly two species of macaque that are used in biomedical research and those are rhesus or fasicularis also called cynomolgus. The rhesus macaque is where the RH factors in blood and polio vaccine came from and cynomolgus are from a little bit farther south in Asia than the Rhesus. Macaques are the most widely distributed species of monkey in the world and the ones we use are not threatened or endangered. There are no primates trapped from there natural habitats. All the animals used in research are bred for research or are taken from areas where they are not native and considered harmful to the environment.
CEOCFO: Why not start earlier with monkeys? Mr. Houghton: There is a lot to learn by using lesser animal models and there are ethical considerations as well before using a primate model. In addition, accessing a primate model is the most expensive research performed. You will do a lot of rats and mice before you get to primates. There is the argument that we do not need to use any animals, we can just go straight from a petri dish to people, this is just not true and very misleading.
CEOCFO: What is involved in caring for monkeys? Mr. Houghton: Other than food, water and a clean healthy environment regulation more than anything else at this point. Non-human primates for biomedical research are probably the most regulated commodity in the country today and possibly more regulated than nuclear waste. About eight agencies are monitoring everything we do. In terms of keeping them, it is all prescribed through various regulatory agencies. Our primary agency of oversight would be USDA.
CEOCFO: Does it make a difference what you feed them? Mr. Houghton: There are longer feed studies that feed high fat diets that replicate the human diet. Generally, the standard animals get Purina Monkey Chow and produce like fruits and vegetables.
CEOCFO: Would you tell us about your other services? Mr. Houghton: On the equipment side, we have everything from the cages that you would put them in to the enrichment devices for their environment and training equipment to work with them. The training equipment is where you train the animals to be cooperative in the work. You train them to participate in the work as opposed to being subjects of the work much like any other working animals. The gloves, the restraint devices, the transfer boxes, the capture nets, all of the equipment that you need to work with non-human primates is in our product line.
CEOCFO: Are there many companies that offer these items? Mr. Houghton: There are a few but I do not know of others that offer both the equipment and the animals. Normally the other animal supply companies have multiple species. Our focus for the last 37 years has been only primates. We only deal with non-human primates. Primates have been our focus and that is our specialty, our niche.
CEOCFO: Are your clients appreciative of your longevity? Mr. Houghton: As I said, we have been in business, 37 years and I do not see why we will not be in business for another twenty. Many of the customers we have, we have had for that entire time. We were always trying to develop new and better ways to accomplish the mission. The mission again is to contribute to human health. At the same time, we do the best we can for the animals, give them an enriched environment, food and things to do and we have a responsibility to do the best we can for their welfare and at the same time accomplish the mission.
CEOCFO: Where does your Genetic Testing fit in? Mr. Houghton: Through the years, there has been a number of things where we have pioneered areas that became evident that were going to be important as the industry developed. About twenty-five years ago, retroviruses and virus antibody testing became important. We worked with a company and helped develop that service. Currently as we are moving more into the world of large molecule biologics as a category or genetically based therapeutics, when we move into that world the characterization of what the monkey is coming with, becomes important. Even though the animals are the same species they can be very different, for example, a rhesus monkey from India has a much different profile than a rhesus monkey from China. The rhesus monkeys from China are much more resistant to SIV, which is the monkey version of HIV. The disease has a slower onset and a longer development unlike the animals do in India. We know that is because of a particular set of genes that are present in one as opposed to the other. That is why we use rhesus monkeys from India etcetera. We learned this from genomic testing.
CEOCFO: Do you do much outreach to drug development companies? Mr. Houghton: That is an evolving issue as well. Marketing is different from sales and your placement and identity within the industry becomes important. Thirty years ago, everything was direct mail. There was no internet. Communications when we first started doing business was by telex, there was not even Fax yet. As the world has evolved, so have the ways in which we message. At this point, messaging is much more at the computer level through broadcasts and newsletters than it would be through mail or sending catalogs. The two main areas that we feel are key are tradeshows and we are looking for new areas and new clients or new people that are getting started in the business. We may prospect a variety of different tradeshows and strike up conversations with people. The other way is our E-mailing list, which is everybody in the US and most of the people in the world that are actively involved with preclinical non-human primates.
CEOCFO: What is involved with shipping primates out of the country? Mr. Houghton: It is complicated shipping both into the country and out of the country. In terms of imports, CDC is the regulatory agency that oversees that. Then comes fish and wildlife. That involves licensing, inspections, quarantine and so forth. There is a 31-day quarantine for all monkeys that come in for research. If they are brought in for research, they cannot be sold for any other purpose. There are only three things you can import monkeys for, which is public zoo, biomedical or behavioral research and university level education. We bring them in and quarantine them. We do all the veterinary work and we have a team of veterinarians on staff. They are then ready for distribution to the biomedical community. To export, a lot depends on the laws in the country that you would be exporting to. Most require not only an export CITES (convention on international trade of endangered species), but an import CITES as well. Your client overseas would have to apply for their import permits in order for us to be able to deliver to them and we would have to receive that here before we could ship to them. When you change title, there are numerous regulations in America that relate to whom you can make sale. Then when you do the transfer, then you have to guarantee that who you are transferring to is appropriately licensed and facilitated in order to receive the animals.
CEOCFO: There are a lot of moving parts to this whole process! Mr. Houghton: It is a very esoteric business.
CEOCFO: How did you get started with primates? Mr. Houghton: I started working in 1972 at Stanford Research in California. I was working with Jane Goodall and Dr. Larry Pinneo who were involved with Chimpanzees. They were using some rhesus monkeys, they handed me a pair of gloves and said, “Grab that monkey for me”, and there was a lot of screaming, yelling and fighting. I grew up agriculturally and got through college milking cows and working on farms. I went to talk to my professor, Dr. Pinneo and said, “You do not rope a milk cow every time you are going to take their milk, you train them”. He said, “You cannot train rhesus monkeys”. I said “I can” and he said, “Here are four, you go ahead and train them”. A week later, I had them so that they calmly leave the cage; all the fighting and stress went away. That was the beginning and one thing led to another. I ended up leaving Stanford Research Institute in late 1979. I formed Primate Products in early 1980 and developed through some friends of mine at the University of California Davis Primate Center. John Anderson and Roy Hendrickson and I developed a new system and concept based on a surge milk system for cattle where the animals participate in the work as opposed to being subjects of the work. It is called “pole and collar handling” It makes things better for the animals and the people. They are working animals just like any other working animal in the world they are our work partners and we get the job done. |
“We have live animals and the equipment to support biomedical research and preclinical studies that requires accessing primates as animal models for advancing human health.” - Paul Houghton
Primate Products Inc.
Contact: 239-867-2020 paulhoughton@primateproducts.com
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Paul
Houghton