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$10m signing fee for obesity drug
Wal-Mart US to sell new CarbSlim items
Food mixes to save lives
Software house launches retail package
CLA cuts body fat 9%
Obesity
$10m signing fee for obesity drug
US drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb
Company has paid Solvay Pharmaceuticals a USD 10 million signing fee for
access to the Solvay compound SLV319, currently in Phase I development, for
treating obesity and other metabolic disorders. The parties will jointly
develop and commercialize SLV319 on a global basis.
SLV319 belongs to a novel class of
agents called CB1 antagonists, which work by blocking the cannabinoid type 1
(CB1) receptor. Clinical and preclinical studies involving this class of
drug have shown that blocking this receptor reduces food intake.
New
products
Wal-Mart US to sell new CarbSlim
items
US retailer Wal-Mart is to distribute
two additional CarbSlim items, chocolate caramel crunch and the chocolate
chip cookie dough, from Breakthrough Engineered Nutrition, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Innovative Companies, in its 3,000 US stores.
The Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites
is a new CarbSlim offering and the maker claims it is the only low-carb
cookie dough candy on the market.
CarbSlim Bites is a patent-pending,
net carb-free candy geared for health-conscious consumers and anyone
following a low-carbohydrate lifestyle.
Nutrition
Food mixes to save lives
Pregnant women, new mothers and
people with HIV or malnutrition and diabetics could benefit from nutritious,
low-cost food mixes developed by the University of Greenwich in the UK.
Compared to the energy-rich foods
provided by the Food and Agriculture Organisation as part of the World Food
Programme, the food mixes developed at the university have a higher mineral
and vitamin content for a more complete diet with longer lasting benefits.
Researcher Dr Paul Amuna said
"We are using our understanding of the science of nutrition and the
composition of foods to create nutrient-enriched foods.
We focused initially on transforming traditional foods in developing
countries, such as cereals and rice, into enriched food mixes for poor
communities. It would cost only 10 to 15 pence to produce 100g of food that
would provide half the daily nutritional requirements of a child. The foods
could also be used in nutritional emergencies such as famine."
Rather than adding nutrients and
vitamins to fortify foods, this research combines individual components from
several different foods to maximise nutritional value. The team is also
seeing how processing and cooking affect the nutritional content.
With HIV on the rise, anti-retroviral
therapy has improved survival rates but will not produce the best outcomes
for patients without good nutrition.
A nutraceutical laboratory has been
set up at the university's Medway campus. It has drawn interest from the
Vaal University of Technology in South Africa, which is working with the
team, and from the Ghana Health Service.
The technical processes involve
identification of common traditional food ingredients and estimation of
their nutrient composition using food databases. These form the basis for
Food Multimix (FMM) formulation followed by experimental nutrient analyses
including proximate and micronutrient analysis. Minerals are analysed using
inductively coupled plasma spectrometry (ICP). Vitamins are analysed
employing high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).
Optimisation of FMM products involves
re-tuning the composition to further enrich it, bearing in mind clinical
and/or daily nutrient requirements. Products developed are tested to confirm
nutrient composition, followed by field-based taste evaluation.
IT
Software house launches retail
package
US software house SAS has brought out
Marketing Automation for Retail, the first retail solution based on the SAS
9 Intelligence Platform. SAS claims it helps retailers gather, store,
analyse and distribute information more quickly than ever before.
In-depth campaign management
functions enable users to optimise and control complex campaigns across
multiple channels, including direct mail, email, catalogue, and in-store, as
well as plan and schedule campaigns in quick succession.
With the analytical systems,
retailers can understand customers' past behaviour and predict their future
actions, both individually and as larger segments. Retailers can also apply
predictive insight directly and dynamically in each individual campaign to
select the most rewarding target audience.
Research
CLA cuts body fat 9%
Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) can
help cut body fat by nine percent, says a study to be published in the June
issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN).
The randomised, double blind,
placebo-controlled study is the first to document the long-term safety and
efficacy of CLA supplementation over a year without additional lifestyle or
dietary restrictions.
CLA helps maintain lean tissue and
may help tone the body without necessarily causing overall weight loss. It
is thought to do this by decreasing the amount of fat stored after eating,
increasing the rate of fat breakdown and metabolism and decreasing the total
number of fat cells.
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