He’s an innovator because…his work with GalaGen and RDIA is concentrated on furthering the science of nutraceuticals.

The Background:

Robert A. Hoerr, M.D., Ph.D., is chairman and chief technology officer of GalaGen Inc., Minnetonka, MN, a company that provides immune-enhancing ingredients for nutritional products. He joined the company in 1993 and has served as chairman since 1998. Dr. Hoerr is also president and a founder of the Research-based Dietary Ingredient Association (RDIA), a newly formed trade group dedicated to establishing standards for scientific research and substantiation of product claims by manufacturers developing functional foods and dietary ingredients for the food, beverage and supplement industries.

Words of Wisdom:

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced thus far?

“Our product Proventra™ helps support immune function in a number of ways. Showing what an immune benefit means has been a particular challenge—the immune system is complicated and there are no tests or performance standards on which everyone agrees. We’ve had to work backwards from consumer expectations to the laboratory and clinical testing. I thought early on that the nutraceutical path would be similar to that for dietary supplements; after all, we had an ingredient backed by a lot of science. Nutraceuticals seem to be different. In our case, while market research shows that consumers are very interested in strengthening their immune systems, the companies that control the flow of food products into the supermarket still feel a lot safer fixing ailments than keeping consumers healthy.”

What should be the measure of success in our industry?

“You can’t argue with a product that has been launched and selling like gangbusters. Yet I’m not sure that will translate into long term success. Perhaps a better measure is creating a product that provides a tangible improvement in health. If a product doesn’t make a difference in people’s lives, it won’t displace the foods they already buy unless it tastes so good or is so convenient that it sells on those merits alone.”

Where would you like to see your company/your work/your industry in five years?

“I’d like to see our ingredient Proventra recognized as ‘the’ immune benefit ingredient in the nutraceutical and dietary supplement markets. I’d also like to have helped map out a clinical testing pathway—where everyone agrees on the pathway—for showing that a product has immune benefits. For the industry, I’d like to see multiple products on the market with clear benefits for a host of specific health needs and labels on those products that communicate exactly why they help and how much they’ll help. I also hope we get to the point where the healthcare community understands these products and how to recommend them. This is an educational challenge that no individual company can solve, at least in the near future, and will require us to work together.”

Are we making a difference?

“I think we are. We are seeing movement towards the understanding that there are active components in food that can clearly make a difference. So far the market has mostly gone after low hanging fruit like educating consumers about RDI nutrients, for example, rather than adding novel ingredients like stanol or sterol esters. We now need to take the next step.”

If you could change one thing, on an industry-wide scale, that would open up new opportunities for all industry, what would it be?

“To be able to put information on the label that tells the truth about product benefits, as opposed to some contrived vague statement that is almost misleading. This is the primary issue that brought RDIA into existence. Last year we put forward a proposal to use independent third-party expert panels to review the science behind a product and agree on what it says. We are also working on finding ways to reward companies that pay for clinical research—they should not only be able to communicate their research findings truthfully on a label, they should also have some means—perhaps by exclusivity for a certain period of time—to recover the substantial investment they have made. Clinical testing is a huge, expensive commitment and I don’t think a lot of it will happen unless companies find a way to get a return on that investment. On the other hand, without clinical testing, I don’t think we will overcome consumer skepticism.