Pharmaceutical Start-ups: WellGen
On April 7th, I had the opportunity to attend the biannual Pharm Fest at Montclair State University. It was a well-organized and interesting event, with several seminars of interest. I wish I could write a full-fledged article on each of the panelists I heard from during that seminar, because I believe they’re all working on something of merit. Today, however, I’d like to focus on WellGen, a company represented by Dr. Kathleen Mullinix that works with nutrigenomics.
Nutrigenomics, according to the Wellgen web site, is the study of how foods and their bioactives, components we more commonly know as vitamins and minerals, interact with genes in the human body to affect health. The concept is that the more we know about this interaction, the better able we’ll be to create customized regiments in human eating habits to promote optimal health based on gene makeup. The first application of this concept has been developed in their first product, WG0401, which is a patented extraction process that takes the beneficial phytonutrients (nutrients of plant origin) found in black tea and applies them to the human body to reduce inflammation in the muscles and provide other benefits to patients. Their second, still unreleased product involves pairing weight management with the phytonutrients found in citrus fruits.(1)
I am admittedly curious about this new product and its implications for the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industries. I mean, could WellGen be considered a Pharmaceutical if its products are chemically identical to the same substances we find in natural foods? And, what differentiates these products from the supplements we find in health food stores? It reminded me of the product that Sirtris Pharmaceuticals is developing based on the key ingredient in wine, resveratrol, that has been linked to longevity and endurance in lab tests on mice (see my original article here). How will these products be regulated by the FDA — will it require the development of a new set of rules to review unique products coming on the market?
By all means, I’m interested in what this kind of science could mean for the future of human health — and whether this research will lead to more preventative medicines with less risk for the human body. Still, we’re altering the quantities that we would normally consume just by the food we’re eating; does that carry with it some risks? Is too much of a good thing wonderful, as Mae West may have quipped, or do we tread softly as we move forward?
In an article by Kitta MacPherson of the Star-Ledger, “Genetics Key to New Preventative Medicine,” it seems that CEO Dr. Mullinix doesn’t think so. Scientists at her company took advantage of
20 years of fabulous molecular biology work which had identified 15 genes, including interleukins and cytokines, involved in causing the inflammation makes muscles and joints sore. In test tubes and, later, in controlled tests on mice and then people, scientists found the substance inhibited inflammation. (2)
Given the seemingly natural path this company is taking, I’d be curious to know what Mike Adams thinks about their products (if you don’t recall, he’s the nutrition expert who issued a $10,000 challenge to BigPharma that I wrote about last week). For that matter, any health expert’s opinion might be interesting to hear. As a hopefully viable replacement for COX2 inhibitors, I would certainly feel more comfortable taking a supplement derived from tea leaves for aching bones instead of a pill that, however remote, has been linked to heart attacks.
Then again, you may remember that “Dieter’s Green Tea” mentioned in my “Supplemental Health” post was the alleged cause of death for June Grell, an otherwise picture of health, at 37 years old.
Maybe, even with products derived from naturally occurring chemicals, I’ll stick to my current regimen, NUN: Nothing Unless Needed.
What do you think?
(1) See “Products” page of the WellGen web site.
(2) See “Genetics Key to New Preventative Medicine,” Kitta MacPherson, Star-Ledger, July 16, 2007 (as republished on the WellGen web site).
