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Biotech / Medical : Biospherics - BINC - The explosion is near!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Pink Minion who wrote (64)	5/16/2000 6:58:00 PM
From: Straight Up	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 94

What happened at GRAS and the annual meeting??? Anyone know??? Expert Panel Meets Next Week To Consider Use Of 'Tagatose' -- Biospherics' Sweetener In Foods And Beverages BELTSVILLE, Md., May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Biospherics Incorporated (Nasdaq: BINC) today said that the Expert Panel deciding whether Tagatose is Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) for use in foods and beverages will meet May 15 in Washington, D.C. GRAS status would permit commercialization of the firm's full-bulk, low-calorie sweetener for use in foods and beverages in the U.S. MD Foods, which licensed these applications of Biospherics' patented technology, was recently merged with the Swedish firm, Arla, to form Arla Foods. Arla Foods officials continue to express confidence that Tagatose will qualify as GRAS. Biospherics' shareholders will also hold their annual meeting on May 15. Biospherics also revealed that in Europe, the evaluation of Tagatose has been assigned "priority attention" by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) for consideration during its June 6 to June 15 meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. "I am extremely pleased that the meetings we have so looked forward to are now at hand," said Biospherics CEO, Dr. Gilbert Levin. "Biospherics' own further studies with Tagatose lead us to share Arla's confidence that the use of this unique sweetener in foods and beverages will be given the green light," he said. Arla officials said that the first full-scale production plant for Tagatose has already been designed and sited. The company said construction would commence soon after GRAS, with the product hitting the market about 18 months later. Biospherics Inc. is a biotechnology research company founded by Dr. Gilbert Levin who also performed research as part of NASA's mission to Mars in 1976 where Biospherics technology helped test soil samples. As a related project, Biospherics began research on non-fattening sweeteners and, in the 1990s discovered that Tagatose, a natural sugar found in certain berries and dairy products, tastes like table sugar and is low in calories. The Company then invented a "green" process to make the sweetener economically using whey as the raw material. Certain statements contained herein are "forward-looking" statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Because such statements include risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ from those expressed or implied. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied include, but are not limited to, those discussed in filings by the Company with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the filing on Form 8-K made on March 3, 1999.