06.01.05
U.K. company Pure Herbal Extracts has found a way to culture the appetite-suppressing molecule from a strain of hoodia and plans to launch supplements containing a guaranteed dose of the active ingredient in the next six months…[the] discovery does not interfere with Phytopharm’s patent on P57, the molecule extracted from hoodia gordonii, since it is extracting it from another strain of the cactus-like plant. Unilever obtained the global rights to P57 from Phytopharm in December 2004 but the first products are not expected to appear on the market for about two-and-a-half years…the molecule has the ability to reproduce itself 24 times in 12 hours. The company will now be able to source it from hoodia grown in the U.S. and Mexico where, in its natural state, contains too little of the active ingredient to have any effect in capsule-sized doses.
—Nutraingredients.com, 4/21/05
—Nutraingredients.com, 4/21/05