A lot has happened in the nutrition field since 2002, when healthy eating billionaire David Murdock had his Dole Food Co. sponsor “The Encyclopedia of Foods,” a traditional, general-interest coffee table nutrition book.
The popularity of so-called “superfoods,” which can range from Dole’s trademark pineapples to trendy South American grains like quinoa, which the Westlake Village company doesn’t grow, have exploded on the nutrition scene.
In addition, studies linking good nutrition to improvements in diabetes and heart disease have made people more interested in learning how they might be able to avoid taking prescription drugs for the rest of their lives.
So the Dole Nutrition Institute’s latest hardcover, the “Dole Nutrition Handbook,” is organized around how to eat foods that minimize the occurrence or severity of diseases from diabetes to cancer.
“This book is much more devoted to the next frontier in nutrition,” said Jennifer Grossman, the longtime Dole vice president who oversees the institute’s publications.
The octogenarian Murdock was godfather of the more-than-two-year project and wrote its introduction, but much of the research and writing went to Grossman and the company’s nutrition research and labeling manager, Nicolas Gillitt.
The book also takes advantage of the scientific relationships that Murdock has nurtured though his sponsorship of the North Carolina Research Campus affiliated with the North Carolina State University. Each chapter includes interviews or short articles by the likes of Bruce Ames, a leading researcher in the links between poor nutrition and DNA damage.
The two-week Dole Diet at the end the book reflects much of Murdock’s views on healthy eating – a regime of fish, fruits and veggies – but expands menu options to include some chicken and occasional low-fat dairy products.
“It’s very much written for the Oprah audience, the man on the street,” said Grossman.
Despite frequent appearance of the Dole name throughout the book, Grossman and Gillitt said the project’s team worked hard to make the work more of an objective nutrition resource and less a 352-page advertisement for Dole food products.
“Our marketing people certainly didn’t think we promoted the company enough, so we think we were able to strike the right balance,” Gillitt said.
Amgen’s Advances
Most attention on Amgen Inc.’s fourth quarter earnings release last week focused on continued lagging sales of Thousand Oaks’ biotech’s flagship anemia franchise, where once soaring Aranesp sales have been hobbled by safety scares.
But the company also is starting to see stronger sales of colon cancer drug Vectibix. After a shaky launch in 2006, sales have been steadily growing after the company took steps to repackage the antibody-based medicine as a specialty therapy for patients with a certain genetic makeup.
Fourth quarter sales for Vectibix were up 44 percent from a year earlier to $66 million, with full-year sales reaching $233 million, a 52 percent improvement.
At a medical conference this month, Amgen reported data from two new studies that appear to strengthen its contention that Vectibix, used in combination with chemotherapy, can increase survival rates for certain metastatic colorectal cancer patients.
“We feel that the improvement in progression-free survival are robust and clinically useful,” said Jeff Wiezorak, Amgen’s director of global development for Vectibix, which works by blocking a process in the body that fuels tumor growth.
The company is still a few years way from applying to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for permission to expand its label for the drug. Amgen is collaborating with a Dutch company to develop a reliable diagnostic test for a gene called KRAS, which when present in a patient in a certain form can increase the effectiveness of Vectibix.
Loading Up
U.S. HealthWorks, a Valencia operator of occupational health care clinics nationwide, has acquired 26 clinics in the last three years – five in the last several weeks alone.
To gear up for a new round of acquisitions, the company last week completed a $175 million financing round to support its growth and acquisition strategy.
The financing package included refinancing and new debt totaling $150 million from a lending group that included GE Capital, Healthcare Financial Services and Silver Point Finance LLC.
The private company also received $25 million in new equity from three existing investors: Altaris Capital Partners LLC; Three Arch Partners; and Daniel D. Crowley, its chairman and chief executive.
“We were able to attract a top-tier group of lenders and put together an attractive package of loans on favorable terms in the midst of a difficult financing environment,” Crowley noted in a statement.
Staff reporter Deborah Crowe can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 232.
