US health science company Forbes Medi-Tech is currently in active discussions with several major food manufacturers regarding the commercialisation of its cholesterol-lowering food ingredients.
The company reports this week that it has been approached by Novartis Consumer Health to help them find a buyer for the Take Heart line of food products enriched with Forbes' Reducol. This follows the decision by Novartis and The Quaker Oats Company to dissolve their joint functional food venture, Altus.
While the operations of Altus have ceased, the two companies are reviewing the most appropriate options to continue the brand. Take Heart was test marketed in upstate New York in the latter half of 2001. This test market was completed at the end of the fourth quarter. During the test market, Quaker was acquired by PepsiCo.
"The decision to dissolve the Altus Food Company had more to do with the acquisition of Quaker by PepsiCo and Novartis refocusing its businesses than it had with the Take Heart line of products themselves," defended Charles Butt, president of Forbes.
"Sales of Take Heart products during the test launch were reported to be extremely positive and the products were well received by consumers. This decision obviously ties in with Novartis' recent announcement to divest their health and functional food business in order to focus exclusively on the more familiar core pharmaceutical and healthcare business."
Forbes is currently in active discussions with major food and dietary supplement manufacturers interested in launching their own line of cholesterol-lowering products using Forbes' proprietary ingredients.
"As we were not clear about the direction PepsiCo and Quaker were going to take regarding the expansion of the functional food area, sales of Reducol to Altus represented a small percentage of our 2002 budgeted tonnage. We anticipate that the finalisation of new food contracts, which are presently under negotiation, will make up for any shortfall," stated Butt.
Reducol is a cholesterol-lowering composition of non-genetically modified plant sterols/stanols derived from coniferous trees. Forbes licensed the composition to Novartis in 1999 and recently announced its intention to repurchase the worldwide rights to Reducol for consumer products. Novartis Nutrition AG, an affiliate of Novartis, has an exclusive option for the worldwide royalty-bearing licence to use Reducol in medical foods.