Ventana's Promising New Anti-Obesity Patent

Main Category: Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness
Article Date: 29 Jul 2009 - 4:00 PDT

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Ventana Biotech Inc ("Ventana")(PINK SHEETS:VNTA), a biotechnology company that is developing a appetite-suppressing chewing gum, released detailed information about its innovative Anti-Obesity Chewing Gum.

The goal of Ventana's Anti-Obesity Chewing Gum is to combat the growing global obesity epidemic while capturing a share of the multi-billion dollar market for anti-obesity drugs.

How it works

Ventana's proprietary chewing gum contains an extract of hoodia gordonii and 2-hydroxyoleic acid. Hoodia gordonii is a leafless, cactus-like plant that grows naturally in Southern Africa that was historically used by native populations to suppress appetite when making long hunting trips in the Kalahari Desert. The plant has also been found to possess the ability to lower blood glucose levels, thereby also making it an attractive candidate for the treatment and prevention of diabetes.

The active ingredients in the plant extracts are released into the patient's blood stream, and trigger a hormonal response in the part of the brain (the hypothalamus) that tells the body it is "full", thereby suppressing the appetite of the obese patient. Because the plant extracts activate hormones that naturally exist in the body, there are no harmful side effects.

The simple logic is that the Anti-Obesity Chewing Gum eliminates the feeling of "hunger", which in turn leads the patient to ingest less food, which in turn leads to weight loss.

Obesity is a growing problem in developed nations, and is associated with increased mortality, Type 2 Diabetes, and heart disease.

With Ventana's proprietary Anti-Obesity Chewing Gum, users can safely control their appetites. Early indications show the Gum is able to reduce appetite by between 15 and 25 percent. Ventana continues to perfect this promising biotechnology and plans to eventually out-license it to Big Pharma companies. The royalty cash-flow from a successful anti-obesity drug is estimated at 1.5 - 1.7 billion Dollars.

The outlook for anti-obesity treatments such as that of Ventana's is promising, as the anti-obesity market continues to grow, while concurrently, the availability of successful patents is lacking. Morgan Stanley estimates the market for drugs combating Type 2 Diabetes (strongly correlated to obesity) to be in excess of $35 billion by 2012.

Source
Ventana Biotech Inc