LifePharms, Inc. is a biotechnology company working on new, untapped source of fungal extracts for drug discovery, agrochemical, enzyme, and food science research. The firm's field collection of North American basidiomycetes and ascomycetes (mushrooms) contain countless chemically diverse and unique compounds, with none of the fungus coming from fungal cultures. Instead, all samples have all been picked in the wild and identified by mycologists before being turned into fungal extracts in laboratories. Natural products have consistently been the most successful source of drug leads. Between 1983 and 1994, 39% of antibacterial and anticancer drugs were derived from natural products. Also, in that same time period, 39% of all new approved drugs were from either natural products or derived from natural products.
