Free Republic

When American Ebola patient Dr. Kent Brantly arrived in Atlanta, Georgia, Aug. 2, he had reportedly already had one course of treatment with an experimental drug called ZMAPP made with genetically engineered tobacco. Although it has only been tested previously in animals, the FDA is rumored to have authorized emergency approval for the drug for Brantly and another American who contracted the virus doing medical aid work in Liberia during the ongoing West African Ebola outbreak. MAPP is produced by a small San Diego-based biotech company. The scientists use a common tobacco bacteria, genetically engineered with different components of the...

(SAN DIEGO) -- The companies manufacturing an experimental drug treating two American Ebola patients aren't among the largest multinational pharmaceuticals in the world. In fact, leading the effort is a small nine-employee firm in San Diego. Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., founded in 2003, says on its website that it develops, "novel pharmaceuticals for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, focusing on unmet needs in global health and biodefense." Mapp's commercialization arm is LeafBio Inc., which has no employees and just two owners, Mapp President Larry Zeitlin tells ABC News. Mapp, along with LeafBio and Defyrus Inc. in Toronto, Canada, collaborated...

The experimental drug used to treat two American aid workers who have been infected with the Ebola virus has never been tested on humans before and was only identified earlier this year as part of an ongoing research program backed by the U.S. government and military. Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol have each received doses of the drug, known as ZMapp, aimed at boosting the immune system's efforts to fight off Ebola and is made from antibodies produced by lab animals exposed to parts of the virus. The Associated Press reported that Writebol, 59, had received two doses of...

An experimental serum given to Christian aid workers infected with the deadly Ebola virus was manufactured by a San Diego pharmaceutical firm using plants, the company and U.S. health authorities disclosed Monday. As Dr. Kent Brantly fights for his life in a special containment unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, and missionary Nancy Writebol prepares to be evacuated from Liberia on Tuesday, details began to emerge about a mysterious treatment they were given shortly after they became infected. The drug, which was produced by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., is called ZMapp and has not been evaluated for safety in humans,...

Kevin LoriaAugust. 4, 2014 Both of the Ebola-infected U.S. citizens in Liberia received a rare dose of what news reports called a "secret serum" to treat the virus before being transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, according to a CNN report. And while some people do fight off the disease on their own, in the case of the two Americans, that experimental serum may have saved their lives. As Dr. Kent Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol waited in a Liberian hospital, someone from the National Institutes of Health reached out to Samaritan's Purse, one of the two North Carolina-based...