The world's biggest food group Nestle is moving into traditional Chinese medicine by joining forces with Chinese pharma group Chi-Med, the Swiss group said on Wednesday. |
ZURICH
(AFP) - The world's biggest food group Nestle is moving into traditional
Chinese medicine by joining forces with Chinese pharma group Chi-Med, the Swiss
group said on Wednesday.
The new
entity, called Nutrition Science Partners (NSP), is to be owned equally by the
two parties, Nestle said in a statement, without revealing any of the
financials behind the deal.
NSP will
research, develop, make and sell nutritional and medicinal products derived
from botanical plants, it said.
The joint
venture will also hand Nestle's Health Science division, which is handling the
deal, access to Chi-Med's traditional Chinese medicine library, which with more
than 50,000 extracts from more than 1,200 different herbal plants is one of the
world's largest, the statement said.
Initially,
the product focus will be on gastro-intestinal health -- a market worth up to
$6 billion (4.6 billion euros) according to Chi-Med -- but could in future
expand into metabolic diseases and brain health, Nestle said.
For
Chi-Med, the deal, which is still subject to regulatory approvals, will bring
"a stream of novel botanical medicines and nutritional products to market
and in so doing build significant value for patients and for our
shareholders," company chief executive Christian Hogg said on a conference
call.
"Botanical
are in the forefront in our view in the search for new medicines," the
Chi-Med chief said.
Traditional
Chinese plant-based medicines represented between 30 percent and 40 percent of
all pharma sales in China, he added.
This joint
venture provides Nestlé Health Science with an opportunity to develop and
commercialise truly innovative and scientifically validated botanical-based
nutrition for personalised healthcare in gastro-intestinal health,? Nestle
Health Science head Luis Cantarell said.
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Sir Li
Ka-shing. (File photo/CNS)
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