In
a recent Q&A in the
Montreal magazine
Maisonneuve, Margaret Atwood gives her interviewer some
unsolicited advice on how to deal with a cold. "You need to
travel with a product called COLD-fX,"
declares CanLit's doyenne. "It's used by hockey players. It's
a Canadian product, it's excellent. It's very potent ginseng.
At the first tickle, take three of
those."
Testimonials
like that are money in the bank for executives at CV
Technologies Inc., the
Edmonton start-up that has
spent more than a decade and $15 million developing a herbal
remedy for colds and flu. And the celebrity converts just keep
coming forward. Michael Burgess, the
Toronto
tenor who starred in the Canadian production of Les
Miserables, is a satisfied customer. As are Clara Hughes,
the Olympic medal-winning cyclist and speed skater, and any
number of NHL players, including Edmonton Oilers captain Jason
Smith and Montreal Canadiens centre Yanic Perreault.
Then
there's Don Cherry. Company officials learned last year that
the voluble broadcaster had been taking COLD-fX to ward off
the chronic colds he's endured since childhood. So CV
Technologies CEO Jacqueline Shan approached Cherry, who agreed
to become an official spokesman for COLD-fX in return for a
percentage of sales revenues being donated to Rose Cherry's
Home for Kids, a charity named after his late wife. Cherry's
mug -- and mouth -- now figure prominently in print and radio
ads launched in the fall to push COLD-fX nationwide. "We know
that Don doesn't give us scientific credibility," says Shan.
"But he's someone known for speaking from his
heart."
Made
from an extract of chemicals found in North American ginseng,
COLD-fX serves two functions. For existing infections, clients
are told to take a total of 18 capsules over the course of
three days. To prevent infection in the first place, a daily
dose of two capsules is recommended. (The latter strategy
doesn't come cheap: a year's supply would run about
$300.)
According to
Shan, a scientist and co-discoverer, the product works by
boosting the immune system cells that help fight colds and
flu. In an attempt to back up that claim, COLD-fX has
undergone seven clinical trials, an unusually high number for
an herbal remedy, the most recent completed this fall. Led
jointly by Gerry Predy, chief medical officer for
Edmonton's Capital Health Region, and
University of
Alberta biochemist Tapan
Basu, the study followed 323 adults, ages 18 to 65, who had a
history of at least two upper respiratory infections in the
previous year. Half took two COLD-fX capsules a day for a
four-month period last winter. The other half received a
placebo. While COLD-fX didn't ward off every infection, those
taking it suffered 45 per cent fewer sick days than the
placebo group, and the severity of their symptoms was cut by
almost a third. Blood tests on the COLD-fX group also revealed
heightened levels of certain white blood cells, considered key
in fighting off viral infections.
To purchase Cold
FX visit:
http://www.globaldrugsdirect.com/DrugMoreInfo3005.aspx
Predy
admits that, like many medical professionals, he is often
skeptical of claims made about natural health products. But he
was impressed by CV Technologies' research record, including
two earlier trials that showed 198 residents at five
U.S. nursing homes
enduring much lower rates of influenza after taking COLD-fX.
Such scrutiny is possible, adds Predy, because the company's
own profiling technology, known as ChemBioPrint, can detail
the multiple components in the capsules and ensure
standardized dosages in each batch. And while Predy doesn't
see COLD-fX as a replacement for annual flu shots, he says its
ability to boost the immune system means "there is potential
for the two to work together."
For
the Chinese-born Shan, 41, who holds a doctorate in
pharmacology from a university in
Beijing and another in physiology from
the
University of
Alberta, chasing a cure
for the common cold has become a full-time job. She had some
training in traditional Chinese medicine before she immigrated
to
Canada in 1987. So
she knew one of the touted benefits of ginseng is enhanced
disease resistance. "People get sick because their defence
system is too weak to fight the viral attacks we're constantly
subjected to," says Shan. "We wanted something from a natural
source to strengthen immune cells."
While
CV Technologies now has a strong core of private investors --
many of them
Alberta businessmen who
swear by the product -- that wasn't always the case. Shan says
the company was often on the verge of going broke in the 10
years she has been with it and she sometimes worked without a
salary. But grants from such public agencies as the National
Research Council and the Alberta Heritage Foundation for
Medical Research kept the venture afloat -- along with no
small measure of luck.
One
of those lucky turns came in 1996 when Glen Sather, then
president and general manager of the Edmonton Oilers, took
note of COLD-fX, which had just come on the market. Oilers
players soon became guinea pigs for the company's first
two-year trial. Shan was excited at testing the product on
high-performance athletes, whose immune systems are constantly
under stress from extreme exercise and frequent travel. Did it
work? Well, the Oilers remain faithful clients. As, too, are
players from 25 other NHL clubs, the CFL's Edmonton Eskimos
and Calgary Stampeders. One of the reasons COLD-fX has swept
the athletic world: the remedy contains no banned
performance-enhancing substances.
Athletes
aren't the only ones whose lifestyle makes them vulnerable to
colds and flu. Tenor Burgess performs over 200 concerts a year
across
North America and
says: "I can't just call in sick when I get a cold." Burgess
started on COLD-fX five years ago after talking to Sather, and
says it has helped keep him in front of the
footlights.
One
obstacle faced by the Toronto-based Burgess was tracking down
the capsules; until recently, 80 per cent of COLD-fX sales
came from
Alberta. But with last
fall's marketing push, it's now available in most major drug
outlets across
Canada. Gross sales
for the first three months of fiscal 2005 stood at $11.3
million, nearly double the sales figure for all of 2004, which
was the company's first profitable year.
But
Shan already has her sights set on bigger prizes. Her studies
show that Americans endure one billion colds annually -- two
to four for every adult and six to eight for every child --
and that the North American market for cold and flu remedies
is a US$4-billion-a-year industry. Then there's the rest of
the world. "My dream," says Shan, "is for this product to be
sold in every corner of the globe." Consider it a Canadian
cold front in the making.
For more
information on this story visit:
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/health/article.jsp?content=20050124_98846_98846
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