Symposium on Functional Foods: “The Future of Asian Health” 21-22 January 2005, HK Polytechnic University, Hong Kong & Shenzhen
Advitech: A New Concept in Milk Peptides and Natural Growth Factors
Renaud Beauchesne MBA President and Chief Executive Officer Advitech inc., Québec, Canada E-mail : www.advitech.com Advitech, a Canadian biotech company, has a strong and clear focus on the development of bioactive peptides and growth factors originating from a milk or whey protein. Our RD efforts are targeting bioactive peptides or complexes that can offer proven efficacy, easiness to use and a good safety profile. Our corporate development model tends to favour partnership and we have been involved since the very beginning of the company with R-D and manufacturing partners such as IngrediA S.A (France) with whom we have been involved in the development of Lactium, an anxiolytic milk peptide able to reduce stress. Lactium has been tested in three different clinical studies and is now marketed all around the world by IngrediA in Europe and Asia, and by Advitech in North America. Advitech has also an in-house R-D program and its main R-D platform (XP828L) is targeting autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis and Crohn’s disease. The XP828L is a powerful bioactive complex, more specifically a mix of different growth factors derived from a whey protein. The product is now covered on a worldwide basis by two patents and has been tested in 2004 in an open label study on 11 light-to-moderate psoriasis patients. This study has been instructive and shows a promising future for this product in terms of efficacy and safety. Advitech has started in December 2004 a double-blind, placebo-controlled study on 84 patients for a 4-month period of time. The results will be available in May 2005. Also Advitech has started a series of in vitro and in vivo studies on two new targets for the XP828L platform: Irritable Bowel Disease and Crohn’s disease. Again the first results on this side will be available in June 2005. The presentation at the Functional Food Symposium will cover specifically both the Lactium and the XP828L.