UTAH COMPANY TO BUY AREA HERB SUPPLEMENT MAKER.Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer With an eye toward growth in the ``nutraceutical'' sector, a direct marketing firm said Tuesday that it will pay up to $105.5 million for the parent of nutritional supplements Nutritional Supplements Definition Nutritional supplements include vitamins, minerals, herbs, meal supplements, sports nutrition products, natural food supplements, and other related products used to boost the nutritional content of the diet. maker Pharmanex Inc. Provo, Utah-based Nu Skin Enterprises Inc. said it will purchase the privately held Generation Health Holdings to gain access to Pharmanex's line of herbal herbal, early botanical book containing descriptions and illustrations of herbs and plants with their properties, chiefly those qualities that made them useful as medicines or condiments. Most of the herbals were written between c.1470 and c. and nutritional supplements. Pharmanex products include green tea and ginko biloba supplements, and Cholestin, a controversial cholesterol-lowering product currently the subject of a lawsuit by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Nu Skin, which had 1997 sales of $890.6 million, markets cosmetics and nutritional products in Asia and Europe. The company will issue 4.1 million shares of its common stock, valued at about $42.5 million based on Tuesday's closing price, and assume $30 million in debt for Generational Health. An additional $33 million payment will be contingent on Adj. 1. contingent on - determined by conditions or circumstances that follow; "arms sales contingent on the approval of congress" contingent upon, dependant on, dependant upon, dependent on, dependent upon, depending on, contingent the performance of Nu Skin stock in the year after the sale closes. Nu Skin shares ended Tuesday off $0.625 at $10.375. Pharmanex officials said the sale should give their products wider exposure internationally. Pharmanex had roughly $12 million in revenues in the first three quarters of 1998, said Chief Executive Henry Burdick, adding: ``This will give us a new distribution channel that will certainly enhance the sale of our products.'' Burdick said it was unclear whether existing retail sales of Pharmanex products will continue. Simi Valley-based Pharmanex has tried to set itself apart from other nutritional supplements makers by applying what it says are pharmaceutical-level standards in research, development and manufacturing to the largely unregulated Adj. 1. unregulated - not regulated; not subject to rule or discipline; "unregulated off-shore fishing" regulated - controlled or governed according to rule or principle or law; "well regulated industries"; "houses with regulated temperature" 2. supplements market. The company's scientific approach caused it trouble with the FDA FDA abbr. Food and Drug Administration FDA, n.pr See Food and Drug Administration. FDA, n.pr the abbreviation for the Food and Drug Administration. earlier this year after Pharmanex claimed the active ingredient An active ingredient, also active pharmaceutical ingredient (or API), is the substance in a drug that is pharmaceutically active. Some medications may contain more than one active ingredient. in Cholestin was the same used in a prescription cholesterol-lowering drug cholesterol-lowering drug Therapeutics Any of a family of agents that ↓ serum cholesterol; the most cost-effective agents for lowering LDL-C are nicotinic acid and lovastatin; the most efficient for ↑ HDL-C are nicotinic acid and gemfibrozil . The FDA said the claim meant Cholestin was itself a drug, and therefore should be subject to the same lengthy review process other drugs face before gaining government approval. A lawsuit the FDA filed to block Cholestin sales is expected to be heard in January. |
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