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History of Hoodia Gordonii
By admin | February 15, 2008
in the same proportion that we discussed in the Overview of Hoodia, the Bushmen (or the San) have used Hoodia plants as a natural appetite suppressant for thousands of years. But how did the secret of the San get out? It turns out by accident?
In 1996 the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa be doing a study of indigenous foods that the Bushmen ate. Part of the scrutinize was to Try for toxic effects of any plants that were consumed by the Bushmen. When they came to Hoodia Gordonii, not Singly was it non-toxic - it helped animals lose weight!
They found when they fed hoodia to animals, the animals lost weight. By 1997, the CSIR exceptional the bioactive combine in Hoodia responsible for appetite suppression and obtained a patent. The self-evident was licensed to Phytopharm and they named the molecule - P57 (because it was the 57th product they spent money on).
What do the Bushmen pocket for their discovery of the Hoodia Gordonii station? At first - nothing! Turns extinguished the CSIR told Phytopharm that the tribe which discovered the Hoodia Gordonii plant had died out and therefore no royalties were due. However, as Mark Twain might announce ‘ - “tales of the Bushmen’s death were greatly increased”. When the Bushmen got word that Phytopharm stand to clear out billions of dollars off there knowledge about the hoodia gordonii plant they were not happy.
Roger Chennells, a lawyer in South continent who represents the Bushmen, was touchy to apply strong legal, moral and political vexation on both the CSIR and Phytopharm. Chennells pointed finished to anyone who would listen that the taking of traditional conversance without equalization was “bio-piracy” and must be stop.
In what is seen as a important wrapper, Chennells was able to persuade the CSIR and Phytopharm to compensate the Bushmen. Now, any company that legally harvests hoodia gordonii from the Kalahari desert must take royalties back to the Bushmen. Not only is this fair and just, it also provides an excellent way to check if the hoodia you buy be legitimate. If the company that makes the hoodia is NOT paying royalties to the Bushmen, you do NOT have a legitimate hoodia gordonii product.
So when will Phytopharm release a P57 based appetite drug? Probably not. in the same proportion that we touched on in the overview, Pfizer had originally paid Phytopharm for the rights to market a P57 based regimen pill. After a few year of unsuccessful attempts to make P57 synthetically, Pfizer pulled out of the deal. If a large amount of P57 could not be created inexpensively in the lab, Pfizer was not interested.
While Phytopharm be discouraged by the Pfizer decision, they knew that Hoodia Gordonii was too powerful an appetite suppressant to give up trying to bring it to the market. inn December 2004, Phytopharm announced that Unilever had entered a deal to market hoodia gordonii in its diet feed product line. Therefore, rather than producing diet drugs, it looks Likely Phytopharm and Unilever will product diet supplements and diet foods with hoodia. The first Unilever products will not be out conj 2008.
Does Phytopharm own the patent on the chiefly Hoodia Gordonii plant? This is an spellbinding question that we are sure will be decided in court one day. Here is our take on the situation - Phytopharm clearly owns the patent on the P57 molecule. If you want two have knowledge of by trial to make a diet drug with P57 you poverty to work through Phytopharm.
The question of the Hoodia Gordonii fix itself being patented is much more complicated. It is our belief that you can not trade name a being, but you can patent the use of plants and a process to extract plants. Here be an exact quote from Richard Dixey, CEO of Phytopharm when he appeared on 60 transactions?
“The patent be on the application of the plant as a weight-loss material. And, of course, the active compounds within the plant. It’s not on the plant itself,” says Dixey.
So no one else have power to use hoodia for weight loss? “As a weight-management product without infringing the evident, that’s correct,” says Dixey.
The on the move we read this (and again we are not lawyers and are not giving any legal exhortation) is as follows - you can sell a Hoodia Gordonii supplement, you just can NOT say it is for ballast loss. This is why many of the best Hoodia supplements have very plain labels that just say “Hoodia Gordonii” but do not say anything about using it as a load down loss or appetite drug supplement.
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