A new company was recently launched in the nutraceuticals industry on the premise of marrying science with marketing-a refreshing concept for an industry that has been plagued by science-less companies. The new company is Efficas and it is focused on the discovery, scientific validation and marketing of proprietary bioactives geared toward four indication areas: obesity, diabetes, allergies and cardiovascular disease (CVD).

President and CEO, Mark Braman, discussed the significance of the company name. “Our company name Efficas, a cognate of the word efficacy, really describes our focus of bringing scientifically validated bioactives to market,” he said. “Much has been learned during the past decade about the challenges of bringing evidenced- based products to market and successfully communicating their benefits to consumers. From a manufacturer’s standpoint, the essential question has become how do you cost effectively generate clinically supported claims around GRAS and DSHEA bioactives and yet protect your investment with defensible intellectual property (IP). Also, in terms of marketing, how do you get a confused consumer to take notice and even pay a modest price premium.”

The company’s strategy has an internal and external approach to building a portfolio of bioactives. Internally, it is in the process of building a research discovery engine that will screen unique, natural biomaterial libraries. These materials will be screened against the company’s proprietary bioassays that address the four health indication areas mentioned above-a process referred to as targeted screening. “We are looking for early leads that come from the screening process of these natural libraries and we will make decisions to further develop a bioactive based on efficacy and IP,” said Mr. Braman.

Externally, Efficas has developed an aggressive program to look for bioactives that it can acquire or license. These bioactives will typically be early stage materials on which Efficas can apply its development, clinical and regulatory expertise. “We will also take the bioactives through scale-up and then commercially introduce it to the market with market leading packaged goods partners,” Mr. Braman said. “What we are trying to do is cast our net fairly broad in order to get a lot of bioactive leads into the pipeline, not unlike pharmaceutical strategy. Where we differ significantly from the drug model is in our ability to rapidly validate a bioactive, literally in a matter of months rather than years on the pharma side.”

The company is currently securing relationships with five outside companies that do discovery and development work. These companies are from all over the world including India, South Korea, New Zealand, Europe and the U.S. As soon as the relationships are finalized, the company will have the exlusive rights to the bioactives coming out of those R&D programs.

Another important aspect of Efficas’ external approach, according to Mr. Braman, is the company’s relationship with Burrill & Company, which is a life sciences merchant bank based in San Francisco, CA. “They are one of the major investors in Efficas and they obviously see a lot of opportunities come through looking for capital,” he said, adding, “As a result Efficas has the ability to see a lot of opportunity as well.”

Efficas also maintains a strong belief in building a solid IP portfolio. “The focus of our research is in areas where we really believe we can develop a strong IP position. We think this cornerstone is critical for the sustainability of the business that we build,” he explained. “There is no way that you will get a return on your investment without a strong IP position on the discovery and development of bioactives.”

The other reason IP is essential is because of Efficas’ partnerships with major consumer packaged goods companies. For this reason, Mr. Braman said, Efficas must bring those companies bioactives that truly have a sustainable point of difference, so that they see a return on investment on their side as well. “The attraction we hold for consumer packaged goods players is an opportunity to build their respective pipelines with sustainably differentiated products. A strong patent estate becomes mandatory here to justify the time, money and effort needed to introduce products with new bioactives to the market.,” he said. “Our partners need to be able to invest in telling the benefit story to the consumer without fearing being knocked off by copy cats two days after launching. We will assist in marketing the product by working to get supportive clinical work published in major peer reviewed journals, which we will then leverage into effective PR.” -R.M.W.