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Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024
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ChromaDex Rolls Out Prescription-Only Supplement

Nutraceutical firm ChromaDex Corp. (Nasdaq: CDXC) is looking to bring flagship ingredient Niagen to the attention of doctors and other healthcare practitioners.

The company, whose market value is about $200 million, said it’s rolling out Tru Niagen Pro, a 300-milligram version of its main supplement that will be available for sale exclusively through healthcare practitioners via prescription.

The rollout is being done via a partnership with Natural Partners Fullscript in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The Irvine-based ingredients maker for supplements said it will also introduce an online education hub for practitioners to get the attention of more doctors.

ChromaDex said its flagship ingredient, a form of vitamin B3, has antiaging benefits by increasing cognitive functions and overall feelings of wellness.

Its main product, Tru Niagen, is now directly marketed to consumers, not doctors and healthcare practitioners. A 60-unit bottle sells for about $50.

Natural Partners is an online dispensary management and distribution company birthed from the merger of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Natural Partners and Canadian firm Fullscript in June. The combined entity joins Natural Partners Fullscript’s “wholesale and fulfillment network in the nutritional supplement industry” and Fullscript’s “online supplement dispensing platform,” according to a company statement.

In addition to offering Tru Naigen Pro directly to practitioners, ChromaDex has entered a distribution agreement with Natural Partners Fullscript to make Tru Niagen available to Natural Partners’ network of over 40,000 practitioners.

Recently, ChromaDex announced a strategic partnership for aging research with the Jiangxi Provincial Government of China. Terms are still being sorted out, “including their respective contributions to the venture, with the anticipation of finalizing a definitive agreement later this year.”

ChromaDex received a $25 million investment from Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka-shing last year, allowing it to introduce Tru Niagen to A.S. Watson locations in Hong Kong, Macau and Turkey.

The beauty and health products retailer, the largest in Asia and Europe, is a subsidiary of Li’s CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd.

Clinical Updates

• Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: SPPI), whose main research facility is in Irvine, is expanding the second-phase clinical trial of drug candidate poziotinib for nonsmall-cell lung cancer patients.

The study doubled in size with new groups of patients. The two previously-treated groups totaled 174 patients; the two new groups plan to enroll up to 70 patients each.

Poziotinib is an oral drug that inhibits mutations or amplification of EGFR family receptors, which have been associated with a number of cancers, including nonsmall-cell lung cancer.

The multicenter global study has active sites in the U.S., and future centers planned in Canada and Europe.

Spectrum has a portfolio of commercial and clinical-stage drugs with a focus in hematology and oncology. The Henderson, Nev.-based biotechnology company has a 56,000-square-foot administrative and research facility in Irvine.

It has a nearly $2.3 billion market cap.

The company licensed poziotinib from Korean biotech firm Hanmi Pharmaceuticals Co.

Spectrum has the exclusive license to develop, manufacture and commercialize the drug candidate worldwide, excluding Korea and China.

n Masimo Corp. recently released results of a study exploring the monitoring device maker’s Oxygen Reserve Index to measure moderate hypoxia, or low oxygen in tissues.

The measurement can be used to notify changes in oxygenation, the company said in a statement. The prospective validation study collected data from 20 adult volunteers, and researchers examined 1,090 paired data points.

The Irvine-based firm has a $6.4 billion market cap.

Scholarship

Grant Sheen, a 17-year-old high school student at Sage Hill High School in Irvine, was among the honorees of the 2018 Davidson Fellows, which is sponsored by the Reno, Nev.-based Davidson Institute for Talent Development.

He received a $10,000 scholarship for his device that allows Alzheimer’s patients to communicate with caretakers. He’s one of 20 student recipients in the country.

The wireless mobile system he designed contains an algorithm that classifies four thoughts of an Alzheimer’s patient, including resting, reading, walking and feeling hungry. Sheen said he got the idea for the device while taking care of his grandmother during her final stages of Alzheimer’s disease, when it was difficult for her to express herself verbally.

The Davidson Fellows Scholarship program, which started in 2001, offers $50,000, $25,000 and $10,000 college scholarships to students 18 or younger who’ve completed projects with potential to benefit society in the fields of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, literature and music.

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