Aphios
Corporation Awarded Fast-Track SBIR Grant from NIH for Improved
St. John’s Wort Product
November
03, 1999
— Aphios
Corporation has been awarded a Fast-Track SBIR grant from
the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
(NCCAM) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The
grant is entitled “Method for Making an Improved St.
John’s Wort Product.”
St.
John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) is a bushy
perennial with yellow flowers which blooms around St. John
the Baptist’s day in June. An oil extract of the fresh
flowers contains liposoluble napthodianthrones, such as
hypericin and hyperforin. These compounds are competitive
monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI), and are thought to
be responsible for St. John’s reputation as an effective
antidepressant. Products, such as St. John’s Wort, are however
being manufactured without any significant regard to the
standardization, reproducibility and validity of the manufacturing
process, or the content and quality of the active ingredients.
Aphios
Corporation is improving the quality and manufacturing of
St. John’s Wort by utilizing supercritical fluids and near-critical
fluids w/wo polar cosolvents such as alcohols (SuperFluids™
). These fluids are gases such as carbon dioxide which,
when compressed, exhibit enhanced thermodynamic properties
that can be “fine-tuned” for rapid and selective
extraction of bioactive molecules. SuperFluids™ provide
the opportunity for more rigorous standardization of nutraceuticals
and potential herbal Rx products such as St.
John’s Wort and for achieving formulations which may not
be possible with conventional organic phase manufacturing.
Such products are also free of toxic organic solvents, environmentally-friendly
and truly “green.”
In
this Fast-Track program, Aphios Corporation is collaborating
with Paracelsian, Inc., Ithaca, NY which has developed functional
assays for herbs, botanicals and other dietary supplements
that are the basis of its BioFIT™ Quality Assurance
Program (U.S. Patent Pending). To date, through BioFIT™
in
vivo serotonin re-uptake inhibition assay, a SuperFluids™
product (U.S. Patent Pending) has been developed. The
product is significantly more potent than marketed hyperforin-based
products. Research has also established that the product
is relatively stable in terms of bioactivity and chemistry.
St.
John’s Wort extracts are sold in pharmacies throughout
Europe, and are in fact among the most popular OTC “phytomedicines”
sold in EEC countries. Among the most widely prescribed
antidepressants in the United States are Prozac® from
Eli Lilly, Zoloft® from Pfizer and Praxil® from
SmithKline Beecham. The worldwide sales of the top selling
antidepressants are approximately $4.8 billion. As people
experience adverse side-effects from prescription antidepressants,
there has been a concomitant rise in the use of St. John’s
Wort and other herbs as natural antidepressants. Several
herbal formulations, purporting to be natural substitutes
for Prozac® , are already being marketed.
Aphios
Corporation is a privately held research and development
company headquartered at 3-E Gill Street, Woburn, Massachusetts
01801, USA, tel: (781) 932-6933, fax: (781) 932-6865, e-mail:
aphios@aol.com. The
Company is developing research tools and industrial processes
for the enhanced discovery, manufacturing, delivery and
safety of naturally derived and genetically engineered therapeutics
for the treatment of cancer, AIDS, and other infectious
diseases in a cost-effective manner. The Company is profiled
in a recent interview on http://www.wallstreetinterview.com.
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