SCOLR is about to ship BIO-tract, the industry's first targeted-delivery probiotic product, to its first-to-market customer.
The name of the customer was not disclosed "in order to preserve its competitive advantage".
Initial deliveries of the tablets are scheduled to coincide with the customer's product roll-out in April. Probiotics, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidum bacterium, and others, are beneficial microorganisms that populate the intestinal tract and are vital to maintaining good digestive health.
As a drug delivery company, SCOLR takes existing products and improves them applying its broad platform of patented technology.
BIO-tract was developed by SCOLR over the past two years, utilizing its extensive knowledge and capabilities in probiotic fermentation and drug delivery systems. The unique, patent-pending SCBIORx delivery technology used in BIO-tract was developed as an extension of the company's expertise in formulating modified release products within its suite of three patented Controlled Delivery Technology (CDT) platforms. The BIO-tract product was designed to overcome significant obstacles preventing optimum delivery of the beneficial microorganisms to the gastrointestinal tract.
Probiotic organisms are fragile and generally have a difficult time surviving stomach acids. In-vitro experiments demonstrate that BIO-tract can survive a pH of 1.0-1.5 for two hours before releasing the organisms into the intestinal tract, and, unlike other products, delivers the live organisms over a span of 10 hours, allowing the living bacteria to populate the GI tract and help to competitively exclude pathogenic organisms from attaching and colonizing the intestines.
According to Stephen J. Turner, director of Product Development for SCOLR: "We presented BIO-tract G.I. (in an abstract entitled 'Novel Design of a Monolithic Oral Controlled-Release Delivery Formulation for Probiotic Organism') at the 2002 AAPS (American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists) annual meeting in Toronto last November and we were pleased with the high level of interest it generated. More recently, in January we were gratified to learn that we had been awarded an NBJ (Nutrition Business Journal) Product Merit Award for BIO-tract, providing further validation of and recognition for what we have achieved with this innovative product."
David T. Howard, CEO of SCOLR, said: "This is the classic example of what we do. We take proven products and make them better so that the consumer is buying a better product and the marketer of the product can distinguish its product from all others. Once again, SCOLR has been first to introduce a major new delivery platform into a growth market and to answer unsatisfied market needs through innovative technology.
"Our SCBIORx delivery system for probiotics builds upon the solid market franchise that SCOLR created with LiveBac, the first room temperature stable probiotic introduced in the 1990s to ensure probiotic viability and potency on the retailers shelves. With the advantage of SCBIORx technology, our BIO-tract G.I. goes beyond LiveBac - offering the same room temperature stability plus the unique ability to deliver the probiotic organism to the optimal site in the GI tract to maximize the benefits which consumers seek from probiotic supplementation," said Howard.
"We believe that BIO-tract G.I has the potential to double our current $2.5 million LiveBac sales in the US and provide SCOLR with additional reach in international markets where we are currently negotiating alliances to commercialize this new concept in those rapidly growing probiotic markets," Howard concluded.
Based in Redmond, Washington, SCOLR (formerly Nutraceutix) is a biopharmaceutical company leveraging specialized knowledge, proprietary and patented products and technologies, such as the patented CDT Controlled Delivery Technology platform, to introduce OTC products, prescription drugs and dietary supplements. SCOLR currently operates in two business segments - drug delivery and nutraceuticals.