By Owen Hembry, New Zealand Herald, 4/26/2011
Manuka Health New Zealand is hoping a new range of products incorporating the benefits of manuka honey and propolis will help it more than double turnover within five years.
The company displayed new products at last month's NZBIO conference which encapsulated the active ingredients found in manuka honey and propolis - methylglyoxal and caffeic acid phenethyl ester respectively - with cyclodextrins as a powder.
The company had started making manuka honey lozenges and propolis powder which it intended to soon start selling as part of a CycloPower range of products.
The products encapsulated the active ingredients using cyclodextrins - a compound with the ability to enhance solubility, stabilise, control release rate, increase bio-availability and absorption.
Chief executive Kerry Paul said: "CycloPower moves us a long way from a pot of honey, improving bioactivity, ease of use and convenience, and with a presentation consistent with medical applications.
"Those are our starting products but we've got a whole pipeline of products lined up to bring out progressively over time."
The encapsulation process eliminated disadvantages of delivering the active ingredient in honey, including acidity, taste and odour, and opened the way to a wide range of applications such as eye drops, Nasal sprays, topical creams and oral capsules.
Oral delivery of manuka honey's active ingredient methylglyoxal opened up many possibilities to make better use of its antibacterial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory properties, the company said.
"From a commercial perspective it increases the multiples earned per kilogram of honey by around 10 times," Paul said. "It opens up new frontiers, midway between natural health and pharmaceutical products."
Caffeic acid phenethyl ester's main property was as an anti-tumour compound, Paul said…
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