Paracelsian Inc. and East West Herbs Ltd. Sign Sales, Marketing
and Manufacturing Agreement
ITHACA, N.Y., Feb. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Paracelsian Inc announced today that it has signed a sales, marketing
and manufacturing agreement -- covering the launch of its first product, AndroVir(TM)-DS -- with East West
Herbs Ltd., a leading herbal supplement company. The announcement was made during a Paracelsian
presentation at the Fifth Annual Smith Barney Health Care Services Conference in New York City.
The agreement calls for East West Herbs to manufacture, market and sell Paracelsian's inaugural dietary
supplement, AndroVir-DS. It is expected that East West will launch this Chinese herbal-based dietary
supplement in the first half of l997 throughout the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain and Italy.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
"We know that Paracelsian's first product can be incredibly helpful in supporting the immune system in
humans," said Robert Miller, Managing Director for East West Herbs. "The Andrographis paniculata herb used
in this product is widely used in the Far East for supporting the immune system and is generally taken by
people during the cold and flu season. This herb also was identified as being supportive of the immune
systems through the proprietary signal transduction technology developed exclusively by Paracelsian."
Paracelsian's screening technology identifies the signaling properties of natural compounds. This technology
identified Andrographis paniculata as a candidate for research into immune functions that evolve from signal
transduction. As a result, Paracelsian has sponsored a recent 6-week clinical trial involving 13 HIV+ individuals
at Seattle, Wash.-based Bastyr University, the leading alternative medicine center in the United States for the
study of HIV. A highly concentrated form of Andrographis paniculata produced a median increase of 110 CD4
T cells per microliter of plasma, or a 31 percent median increase over pre-study counts. CD4 is a special type
of white cell in the blood critical for normal immune function. The CD4 count is also a standard measure of the
progression of the AIDS virus.
East West Herbs Ltd., based in the U.K., develops, manufactures and sells a wide variety of herbal dietary
supplements. Its U.S. headquarters are located in Emeryville, Calif. According to Nutrition Business Journal,
herbal-supplement retail sales were $2.3 billion last year.
Paracelsian is a biotechnology company engaged in the discovery of useful products from herbal sources. Its
discoveries are accomplished by applying the Company's proprietary screening technology, based on signal
transduction, to its library of extracts used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. SOURCE Paracelsian Inc. |
