Top Editors ... Nutrigenomics: is there a market for personalised nutrition?

Title: Nutrigenomics: is there a market for personalised nutrition?
Date: 17/07/2006
Autor: By Dr Kathie Wrick

The Human Genome Project was a significant breakthrough in gene
technology, but will it have an impact on the food and supplement industry?

Many think of the much celebrated research effort to identify all the genes that humans possess as something that will only benefit the pharmaceutical industry’s drug development efforts. It may be hard to believe, but the technologies that have emerged from the massive effort to identify human genetic make-up have spawned research tools as well as patented testing methods that in turn are being used to help consumers understand their dietary needs based on their own genetic profiles that determine their risk (or lack of risk) for chronic disease.
The days of the ‘one-size-fits-all’ dietary recommendations are likely to be over well within our lifetimes, maybe as soon as a decade away. Science has already learned from the application of the new testing methods that some well-established dietary recommendations for preventing heart disease may actually be harmful to some population
groups with a particular genetic profile.

Genetic testing

Though a considerable amount of government funded research in nutritional genomics is underway throughout Europe, business development for actually applying the new genomic tools is underway in the USA, where an embryonic personalised nutrition testing service business is starting to grow. Participants in this new industry
include biotechnology companies developing (and patenting) genetic testing methods and devices, clinical laboratory
services that are adding nutrigenomic and pharmacogenomic testing to their menu of routine clinical tests, and dietary supplement companies who offer customised nutritional products based on genetic test results.
At least five biotechnology companies are either actively working on, or have commercialised, tests addressing nutritional needs based on the individual’s genetically determined profile for cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, immune health, detoxification ( the ability to metabolise dietary and other chemicals, such as caffeine), antioxidant metabolism, B-vitamin metabolism, insulin resistance, diabetes, and certain forms of kidney disease. All these
disorders have a dietary component to them, to manage, treat, or in some cases, possibly avoid ever getting the disease.
Many participants in this clinical testing services segment have adopted a direct-toconsumer (DTC) business model, as opposed to working directly and exclusively with physicians, who have traditionally been the ‘gatekeepers’ of test requests and interpretation of results for their patients/consumers. Today’s nutritional genetic testing business is driven by positive consumer attitudes towards using genetic information to optimise health, along with the availability of technologies for individualised genetic testing for diet-related conditions. Syndicated US consumer research has documented since 2003 that consumer interest in genomics and products and services derived from genomics
technologies continues to remain high.
(Cogent Syndicated Genomics Attitudes and Trends, 2005, Cogent Research, Cambridge, MA http://www.cogentresearch.com)

This segment is also growing rapidly because of a loose US regulatory landscape with regard to laboratory testing services. The various government agencies involved in the regulation of clinical testing may have been caught unprepared to deal with the rapid growth of direct-to-consumer genetic testing. Until recently, the business of
genetic testing was quite small and designed to please the scientific standards of the ‘physician-gatekeeper’. Should the current US regulatory environment continue, genetic testing services companies of all kinds may not only find success with the DTC business model, but also gradually create a consumer base demanding specific foods, supplements, and other products and services designed to meet their personalised needs and interests. This is the area that packaged food companies need to watch. In addition to monitoring the emerging personalised nutrition business, the new genetic and genomic technology toolbox has not gone unnoticed by forward thinking food ingredient companies. These firms are using cell culture and other methods to screen various phytochemicals from food for potential positive health benefits before taking them to animal and clinical trials. In this case, the new technologies are being used to increase the success rate of identifying new food ingredients with health benefits. Dietary supplement companies are already partnering with firms developing the tests, and offering genetic tests to
consumers as a vehicle for developing customised supplement programs. The partnership between Alticor (formerly called Amway), one of the largest direct sales organisations in the USA and a long standing marketer of nutritional products, and Interleukin Genetics has been well publicised, for example.
A recently released market report not only provides extensive background on how genomic technologies with food and nutritional applications have developed; it also describes the impact that genomic and genetic technologies are having ‘from farm to fork’ in the food and supplement industries.