Merck starts world-wide exclusive marketing of reduced folates to the functional food and dietary supplement industry

Mobile, Alabama/USA and Darmstadt/Germany (PROTEXT) - TheSouth Alabama Medical Science Foundation (SAMSF) of Mobile,Alabama, and Merck KGaA of Darmstadt, Germany, have reached anexclusive license agreement granting Merck's Cosmetic Health &Nutrition division the rights to market naturally occurringreduced folates world-wide. The target markets are in thefortified and functional food area as well as in the dietarysupplement industry. "Merck is committed to marketing scientifically driven andclinically proven reliable ingredients into the nutritionmarkets, and this agreement will support the expansion of ourNutrition business", says Dr. Lutz Thomas, Manager of Merck KGaAsworldwide Functional Ingredients business. Under the terms of theagreement, Merck will have the right to use U.S. Patent 5,997,915("Food and Vitamin Preparations Containing the Natural Isomer ofReduced Folates"), which has been filed by the SAMSF. The initiallaunch of folates into the nutrition industry will startimmediately and will focus on L-5-Methyl-Tetrahydrofolate (L-MTHF), one of the most abundant forms of folate in nature. Folates are thought to be involved in maintainingcardiovascular health (for example, by converting homocysteine tomethionine), in reducing the risk of cancer (for example, coloncancer), and the prevention of neural tube birth defects. The folate presently used in food fortification andmultivitamin tablets ("folic acid") is inactive as such, and mustfirst be converted to the actual physiological folates to bemetabolically functional. Scientific data suggest that noteverybody in the general population may fully benefit from addedfolic acid. Therefore, natural folates such as L-MTHF have thepotential to become the folate source of choice for theestablished and new applications. Today, the total market volume of folic acid for humannutrition amounts to around 150 metric tons per year,representing a value of USD 15-20 mio. In an attempt to further strengthen its global FunctionalNutrition Ingredients business, Merck KGaA recently startedworldwide exclusive marketing and distribution of the Omega-3polyunsaturated fatty acids product range of Clover Corporation(Warriewood/Australia) in more than 70 countries. Merck KGaA runsits worldwide Nutrition business as part of the Cosmetics-Health-Nutrition (CHN) division in the Specialty Chemicals businesssector. ots Original Text Service: Merck KGaA Internet:http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact Dr. Hartmut Vennen Tel. +4961 51 72 2386 Fax +49 61 51 72 7707 E-mailhartmut.vennen@merck.de Internet http://www.merck.de

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