Taking Health By the Throat

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A West L.A. specialty company hasn’t figured out how to put the nutritional qualities of the proverbial “apple a day” into a pill. But it does develop and sell what’s called “medical food.”

Despite the name, Targeted Medical Pharma Inc.’s prescription products are pills. They are designed to treat nutritional or metabolic deficiencies that could be the cause or the symptoms of a particular disease, in a more scientific way than daily multivitamins. Its most popular product, Theramine, is used as a sleep aid but can be taken in conjunction with the company’s amino acid compound Sentra to treat the nerve condition fibromyalgia.

The company this month introduced Percura, a blend of amino acids designed to reduce pain and numbness related to peripheral neuropathy, which often afflicts diabetics, or patients with shingles and other autoimmune diseases.

The products, which are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, can be used as supplements or alternatives to current drug treatments.

“A physician can in some cases take a patient off a drug, or at least lower the dosage, if the patient is also taking a medical food that addresses a nutritional deficiency that was caused by or led to their disease,” said company founder and Chief Executive Dr. William Shell, a cardiologist. The company’s stock began trading on the over-the-counter Bulletin Board in October via a reverse merger.

Targeted Medical, which has 68 employees locally and 35 sales representatives in 14 states, manufactures 10 proprietary medical foods, as well as 48 kits that pair a medical food and a pharmaceutical drug. The products are sold by its Physician Therapeutics division to doctors’ offices, pharmacies and skilled nursing facilities, or by prescription at certain pharmacies. Targeted Medical also sells its products in Japan.

– Deborah Crowe

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