CP: Goodness.... Anything else? Levin: Well, we just today received notice of allowance for a patent—which we will surely get—on the use of tagatose to increase fertility and to produce heavier fetuses. This is based on tests done with rats—those taking D-tagatose had larger fetuses, and a higher number that were viable, than those which did not take it. CP: Is this a nutriceutical application? Levin: No, this would be a pharmaceutical application. It would be prescribed under a doctor’s care and it would be an extremely high dosage. The normal dose that you’re going to eat in your candies and cakes would not apply here. CP: That is quite a long series of claims. Levin: There is more. The Danes have discovered that tagatose is a prebiotic—meaning it fosters so-called good microorganisms in the intestines and decreases the population of bad ones, such as E. coli O157:H7. It aids the digestive process. In addition, it produces short chain fatty acids—in particular butyrate, a naturally occurring compound that has been cited in several publications as fighting against colon cancer. Understand, we are not making that claim, but nonetheless tagatose produces butyrate and people have made such claims for butyrate. CP: So, it has tremendous promise as a nutriceutical? Levin: Yes. And we had some trouble initially convincing our licensee to look at that because when we first began the research, nutriceuticals had a bad name. But now everybody’s into them. CP: What problems, if any, have you encountered during the development of this product? Levin: Well, I would not say it was a problem, but our licensee took a very conservative route to obtain GRAS status for its product. They appointed an internationally renowned group of scientists to form an expert panel to review the data. And they not only provided the panel with all the data we had developed over a ten-year period, but made many new studies. And, of course, we made our studies on humans at the University of Maryland available, which I think was the first time any sweetener actually had human studies—the FDA doesn’t require human studies for foods. So, Arla Foods took a very long path, but it was worth it because normally when a unique food product like ours is introduced it comes under attack. Arla wanted to be in the strongest possible defense posture to say, no, we’ve done all the testing and so on. CP: Was there a reason you went overseas for the licensing deal? Levin: Yes. We couldn’t get any American companies to take it on. American companies are geared toward short-term growth. They immediately thought it would mean at least a five-year development period, and most CEOs are only in for five years, with their retirements geared to their profitability. So, a lot of them think why should I do this for the next guy? CP: It didn’t have anything to do with going up against Monsanto? Levin: No, I gave Monsanto an opportunity and they declined it. CP: So, you haven’t run into any problems with people suggesting it is just another sweetener and Monsanto is too big to mess with? Levin: Oh yes, we had this guy on Barron’s who came out with an editorial against it when we first got our patent—he said it’s ridiculous, a phony balloon, we don’t need another sweetener because we’ve got aspartame...he didn’t understand we’re talking about a whole different market from aspartame, and a much larger market in baked goods. |