Packing a (Fruit) Punch

KGK Synergize pursues nutraceuticals

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By Patricia Nicholson

Fruit juices may offer more benefits than you can get from drinking a glass of OJ. For Najla Guthrie, president and CEO of KGK Synergize Inc., those benefits include building a biotech business as well as offering some promising health possibilities.

Based in London, Ont., KGK’s research is focused on the therapeutic effects of food components — particularly flavonoids.

“Flavonoids are components found in many plants. If you want the technical term for them, they are polyphenolic compounds,” Guthrie says. “There are about 6,000 different flavonoids in nature.”

Flavonoids are often responsible for the bright colours in fruits, vegetables and flowers, and many have antioxidant properties or other health benefits for humans.

“We were interested in the flavonoids in citrus when we started, so we narrowed it down to looking at those,” Guthrie says.

The company’s research has shown flavonoids found in citrus juices to be effective in several applications, including lowering cholesterol and inhibiting the proliferation of cancer cells. KGK is also researching flavonoids and other compounds found in soy and canola, among other plant sources.

Guthrie has extensive experience in the field of nutrition research. After completing her B.Sc. in biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario (UWO) in London, Ont., she worked for 12 years as a researcher at the university’s Centre for Human Nutrition. During that time, she published more than two dozen papers in peer-reviewed journals, mostly focusing on anti-cancer properties of food components. Research into the anti-cancer and cholesterol-lowering properties of flavonoids would eventually form the basis of KGK’s first technology.

KGK Synergize Inc. was founded in 1997 when Guthrie and two colleagues decided to spin off their research from the Centre for Human Nutrition. Elzbieta Kurowska, PhD took on the role of vice-president of R&D, and the nutrition centre’s director, Kenneth Carroll, PhD, became vice-president and senior scientist. Sadly, Carroll died a year later.

The company, which got its name by taking an initial from each of its founders, soon licensed out its first patent — for a cholesterol-lowering compound — to an Australian firm. Currently, KGK is in negotiations with a large American food ingredient company for the licensing of its lead product, a cholesterol-lowering nutraceutical called Sytrinol. A polymethoxylated flavone that works by reducing cholesterol synthesis in the liver, Sytrinol is expected to launch in the U.S. this year. Tests suggest the product reduces cholesterol synthesis by as much as 25 per cent.

Entrepreneurial Exposure

Guthrie grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, and also married an entrepreneur. That exposure, she says, influenced her decision to trade in her lab coat for a business suit. In some ways, it made the decision and the transition easier.

“It’s not as much of a scary proposition to me as it would be to someone who was not raised with that or never had that around them,” Guthrie says. “It’s not a foreign concept,” she adds, laughing.

Guthrie approached the transition from scientist to CEO with enthusiasm. When she says she enjoys the business side of biotechnology, she means it: her voice becomes animated when she talks about KGK’s product pipeline, its market potential and the company’s two-pronged business model.

KGK Synergize is in an enviable position for a Canadian biotech company: it has never had to chase funding. The company was set up with two divisions: contract research services, and product development. The contract research division brings in revenue by performing preclinical and clinical research services, as well as screening, medical writing and data analysis on a contract basis. Meanwhile, the product development division is responsible for researching and developing KGK’s own products: functional foods and nutraceuticals.

It’s a business model that Guthrie says has been highly beneficial for KGK Synergize, allowing the company to pursue its R&D goals without the distraction of wondering where its next round of financing would come from. But as the company’s first product is about to be launched, and with eight more in the pipeline, KGK is taking a close look at its options.

“We are at that stage in the company’s growth where we can continue to do what we have been doing and get our products to market as we can afford to get them to market: funding them ourselves and taking time,” Guthrie says. “Or we can shorten that and go to the next level of growth in our business by taking either debt or equity financing into our company, and bring them to market faster.”

Guthrie says the company is not so much moving away from its original business structure as considering all opportunities.

“It’s simply a timing issue. First to market is always the winner,” Guthrie says. “And this is the time — there’s a lot of interest in these products on the market.”

The market for nutraceuticals, she says, has great potential. It is consumer-driven, and will only grow as the population ages. The interest in and need for nutraceuticals is expanding, and KGK is well positioned to take advantage of that. Guthrie sees great promise in the nutraceutical market, not just for enhancing health, but also for business opportunities.

The company recently incorporated in the U.S. in order to better service the American market. Guthrie says 70 to 80 per cent of KGK’s market is south of the border, so it makes sense for the company to establish an office there. KGK’s labs, however, will remain at the company’s London location at UWO’s Research and Development Park.

Pipeline Potential

As much as Guthrie is excited about the prospect of seeing KGK Synergize’s first nutraceutical on shop shelves this year, consumer product manufacturing and marketing are not areas she sees KGK pursuing. The company’s strengths lie in developing functional foods and nutraceuticals and preparing them for production and marketing. KGK is focused on bringing more of its products to that phase.

“We have two patents issued and eight pending,” Guthrie says. “And this is one product out of one patent — so we have the potential for a lot more products.”

Including Sytrinol, KGK has a nine-product pipeline.

“They’re not all based on flavonoids. A good number of them are, but not by any means all,” Guthrie says. “But they are all natural products. They are all nutraceuticals.”

KGK’s products target cancer, cardiovascular disease, cholesterol, Type II diabetes and inflammation. One of the advantages of nutraceuticals, such as flavonoids, is that they are not subjected to the same long and expensive clinical trial process as pharmaceuticals. Nutraceuticals enjoy a much shorter regulatory route, which means they reach the market faster.

Less time spent in trials does not mean that KGK has not had to meet challenges, and some of its toughest hurdles have come as the result of success, not failure. For a small startup, pitching the company’s ideas and technology to big multinationals can be a bit intimidating. Guthrie says that knowing the value of your technologies and products is crucial — and one of the hardest lessons to learn.

When asked about her biggest current challenge, Guthrie cites another example of keeping up with successes.

“I would say the rapid growth that we’ve experienced,” she says. Since 1997, KGK has grown from its original three founders to 20 employees and a strong product pipeline.

“Finding the right people,” Guthrie says, is a challenge in the biotech industry. “People are always key.”

Having worked both sides of the lab bench, she knows the rewards and pitfalls of both roles. But these days, Guthrie is strictly business. She is far more involved in the boardroom these days than the lab, and says she misses lab work less and less. With the fruits of her research expected to reach U.S. consumers some time this year, Guthrie has had the opportunity to guide flavonoids all the way from the research stage to the marketplace.

“I feel very lucky to have been able to have the opportunity to experience both things and to be able to change careers in this manner and switch gears like that,” Guthrie says. “Not a lot of people have the opportunity to do that, and I feel very lucky about that.”

Given her enthusiasm for the business side of biotech, it’s not surprising that Guthrie’s advice to anyone else who is considering making the leap from the lab to the boardroom is straightforward and spirited:

“Go for it!” she says.