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Wellness & Nutrition
Our bioNutrition business develops and commercialises products that target the growing population of health conscious consumers around the globe who seek to manage and improve their general health and well-being or to prevent or treat certain diseases or ailments through regular intake of Functional Foods and dietary supplements. Our products and product candidates target the needs of this consumer segment by incorporating scientifically and clinically validated medicinal plants extracts, or bioactives, derived from traditional Indian medicine.
We identify and develop these bioactives using ADePtTM, our proprietary bioactive discovery engine and information management platform, and MetagridTM, our proprietary methodology to test promising bioactives. Together ADePtTM and MetagridTM integrate a proprietary database containing medicinal and biologic data accumulated from Indian traditional medicinal practice with modern day molecular biology assays and fractionation tools to isolate distinct extracts and bioactive fractions which have validated therapeutic and clinical benefits.
Our current portfolio includes products which have been clinically validated in various therapeutic areas including diabetes, bone health through bone mineralization, formation and resorption, cardiovascular diseases by increasing triglyceride and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and weight management. Our product candidates are also under investigation for use in stress management, skincare, immuno-modulation, pain management, osteoarthritis and digestion.
Through our bioNutrition products we are focused on the prevention and treatment of degenerative diseases, disorders and conditions, particularly diabetes (through reduction and maintenance of blood glucose levels), osteoporosis (through promotion of bone formation and reduction of bone resorption) and cardiovascular disease (through reduction of triglycerides and increase in HDL cholesterol), and on the improvement of certain everyday health functions, including stress management, pain management, digestion, immunity, performance enhancement and weight management.
Our pipeline consists of 25 new proprietary bioactives in varying stages of development ranging from pre-clinical trials to post-proof of concept trials, for inclusion in Functional Foods and dietary supplements to be developed and marketed by us or for inclusion in products co-branded with our partners. We currently market our bioNutrition products under two brands. Avesta Good Earth FoodsTM brand offers a portfolio of independently branded Functional Foods and health foods, which are currently marketed in India. Avesta Nordic Research, a portfolio of independently branded bioactives and dietary supplements. We are developing additional brands for certain of our products targeting specific end markets. In May 2008, we launched TeestarTM, our first ADePtTM and MetaGridTM derived bioactive, which we clinically demonstrated to reduce blood glucose levels.
We have developed a unique and proprietary bioactive discovery engine and information management relational database, which we call ADePtTM, and a proprietary metabolite analysis tool for fingerprinting of phytoextracts, which we call MetaGridTM. These technologies integrate a proprietary database containing thousands of years of Indian traditional medicine with modern-day high-performance chromatography analysis, enzyme and cell biology assays and fractionation tools to isolate distinct extracts and bioactive fractions that have validated therapeutic and clinical benefits. We have generated a compendium of data over the years and have identified a very large number of compositions and extracts targeted to a wide range of biological conditions. ADePtTM allows for the early selection of the most promising medicinal plants and recipes while MetaGridTM enables us to test promising ingredients and extracts in a high throughput instrumental analysis. We believe that using ADePtTM together with MetaGridTM results in better reproducibility of extracts and is a more exacting tool for quality assurance at the manufacturing level than tools otherwise available.
Our bioNutritional products and product candidates range include novel Functional Foods and dietary supplements that target the growing population of health-conscious consumers around the globe. Our core areas of focus include the prevention and treatment of certain degenerative diseases, conditions and disorders including diabetes, CVD, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, obesity and bone loss, as well as the improvement of certain health functions, such as, stress management, pain management, digestion, immunity, performance enhancement and weight management. Our scientifically validated herbal extract ingredients are plant extracts that have demonstrated positive health effects based on traditional Indian or Ayurvedic medicine.
The product portfolio of our Good Earth label includes quality health foods such as breakfast cereals and crackers, which were the original products of Good Earth Foods when we acquired the company in March 2005. Our product line includes a range of muesli bars, new flavour variants of the muesli breakfast cereal and a couple of value-added oats products. We are currently in the process of expanding the Good Earth product portfolio by incorporating clinically validated bioactives, which we have identified and developed with our ADePtTM and MetaGridTM proprietary technologies, into the Good Earth branded products to create a line of Functional Foods.
The following is a description of a typical development cycle for a bioactive ingredient in our bioNutrition business. The development cycle would typically include the following stages:
In the identification of the medicinal plant and the relevant bioactive extract, we leverage our proprietary ADePtTM database. We select potential candidates based on our focus on specific diseases. The separation and purification of the bioactive extracts from the plant raw material is based on published protocols or modified protocols developed by us. We then screen the isolated fractions in enzymatic and cell-based assays based on our proprietary MetaGridTM technology to confirm the desired effect at an enzymatic and cellular level. MetaGridTM is a reproducible analytical technique consisting of reverse phase liquid chromatography (single or multiple dimensional chromatography) coupled with photodiode array (PDA) and Avesthagen algorithm which, combined with our in-house metabolite fingerprinting allows us to control the batch-to-batch variations of bioactives. These are further analyzed for the bioactivity upon comparing with a group of reference signatures, which have various levels of bioactivity.
Once identified, extracted and screened a targeted bioactive, any bioactives having odd colour and taste will be optimised for almost neutral colour and taste through a process referred to as organoleptic optimisation. Organoleptic optimization is carried out by modifying the extraction procedure without altering the chemical structure of the bioactive which allows us to retain the bioactivity while neutralising any undesirable smell or taste. The process is conducted using food grade permissible solvents and is repeated until we get a desired smell, colour and taste without diminishing the bioactivity. In the next stage, we conduct efficacy and toxicity studies with animals which are then followed by proof of concept clinical trials. Depending on the targeted market, we need to complete regulatory processes before commencing sales of the relevant product.
We group our product portfolio into four categories:
APIs. We have begun business development activities for highly refined individual species of phytochemicals that we believe to hold sales potential as active pharmaceutical ingredients. Our ActivePharmaTM ingredients are focused on therapeutic standards for certain chronic health conditions. These branded bioactive nutritionals offer supporting scientific validation and pharmacological activity in isolated compounds. For example, we are focused on the powerful antioxidant xanthone constituents found in the mangosteen fruit rind and developed a highly purified 95% alpha-mangosteen pharmaceutical grade plant extract.
Signature Brands. These innovative ingredients exhibit the highest standards for purity and efficacy. Each product is a trademarked brand identity for which we have filed patent applications covering components such as our processing methodologies, various augmented and hybrid compositions and methods of use. These brands include XanoMaxTM extracts from the Mangosteen fruit rind; BanoptaTM Banaba extracts standardized to either Corosollic acids or Ellagitannis; GojiMaxTM goji berry extracts; and HibiXTM, a beverage grade source of the weight management compound HCA.
Premium-Brands. We produce herbal extracts ingredients whose specifications we believe are difficult for competitive factories to match because of the expertise involved in relation to sourcing raw materials, standardising active markers at higher purity levels, or in working with newly elucidated species of phytochemicals that have not been previous promoted within the industry. We have registered trademarks for these ingredients to differentiate them from commodity types. Examples include AmlaPure, PomPlex, Boswell, Pegasus, Ashwagandha extracts and Gymulin Gymnema extracts.
Standard Ingredients. We also distribute approximately 40 standard commodity type herbal extracts for sale as ingredients in dietary supplements, including Gingko biloba, Echinacea, St. John’s Wort, Pomegranate extract and Green tea extract.
TeestarTM is sourced from an extract of Trigonella foenumgraceum, a plant that for many centuries has been known to have positive effect on sugar metabolism. TeestarTM is an extract from a single herb named trigonella foenumgraceum, commonly known as Polarstar, which we identified and selected based on our ADePtTM database. This herb is recognised in Ayurvedic texts as a common treatment against a condition referred to as “sweet urine”. Based on our analyses of the bioactive compounds present in the herb, we identified several fractions that potentially impact blood sugar levels. We then conducted various cell-based assays with these fractions and characterised the ability of each to enhance sugar uptake.
Avesthagen’s research programs have led to a portfolio of scientifically validated botanical bioactive ingredients exclusively derived from traditional Indian medicine. Avesta Nordic’s Functional ingredients, such as Teestar®, Cincata®, Bonapure™ & Bonaphyte™ have scientifically, and some of them clinically validated health benefits to promote wellness through prevention of specific degenerative conditions: diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndromes, cardiovascular disorders and bone loss. Avesthagen’s DHA from algal sources will also provide the much needed omega-3 fatty acids to vegetarians. AvestaDHATM is derived from a 100% vegetarian source. The Company is in the process of developing a manufacturing alliance for AvestaDHATM and has developed a marketing alliances for its bioactives and DHA.
At Avesta Nordic Research, our philosophy is to develop products that feed into the global demand for safer, natural healthcare alternatives. Our goal is to become a leading player in the nutraceutical market by promoting products that incorporate proprietary, scientifically validated bio-actives into everyday food to promote wellness and health.
Avesta Good Earth FoodsTM is an Indian food company with global ambitions, dedicated to developing nutritious alternatives for breakfast, daily snacks, and Functional Food for all who strive towards promoting wellbeing through a healthy diet.
We add value by developing and marketing product lines Fortified with nutritional bioactives sourced from traditional Indian medicine clinically validated through techniques of modern science. At Avesta Good Earth FoodsTM, we believe that food can be therapeutic, if careful attention is paid to customise dietary inputs with respect to individual needs. We believe in providing Preventative and Personalized healthcare by creating balance from within. Our focus is on Ready to launch Functional ingredient, Functional Food and OTC products through modern trade and e-commerce in India and available for licensing worldwide. To find out more, visit us at Avesta Good Earth FoodsTM
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In our bioNutrition business, we protect our intellectual property through patent applications and the registration of trademarks in the markets in which we currently operate, and in markets that we expect to target in the future. We license some of the process technologies utilised in our bioNutrition business from third parties in our ordinary course of business, but we do not consider any of these licenses to be material to our bioNutrition business. In our bioNutrition business, we have been granted 4 patents covering process, composition and/or methods of use of key botanical extracts. We have 196 pending patent applications for our bioNutrition business. We have registered 69 trademarks for our bulk botanical extracts and dietary supplements.
We 92 novel inventions in relation to the development of clinically validated botanical bioactives and Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). So far, the company has received 21 granted patents in bioNutrition, which also includes an important patent for the production of DHA. There are 110 patent applications at varies levels filed in India and other jurisdictions.