Seven months after acquiring the former Nutrition 21 Inc. in a bankruptcy auction, the father-son team of Phillip and Michael Satow has resurrected the nutritional supplement company with hopes of entering the drug development business.
The Purchase business was officially relaunched June 27 as Nutrition 21 L.L.C., with Michael Satow named president and CEO and his father, Phillip, serving as chairman.
The younger Satow said Nutrition 21 will continue to develop and market ingredients that are incorporated into vitamins and other nutritional supplements, with an eye on expanding the company”™s capabilities and offerings.
“We”™re very much continuing what they were doing, but we have the financial resources to effectively move a lot of projects forward at once that the prior company might not have been able to do,” said Satow, who resides in Chappaqua.
An investment group led by the Satows, Nutrition 21 Acquisition Holding L.L.C., closed on the $7.5 million purchase Nov. 22, 2011, acquiring all of the company”™s assets, including more than 70 patented nutritional supplement ingredients.
Nutrition 21, which had been publicly traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in White Plains last August, listing $122.8 million in liabilities and fewer than $7.2 million in assets.
Previously, Michael and Phillip Satow ran JDS Pharmaceuticals, which they founded in 2004 and which focused on the psychiatry and women”™s health markets. The company was sold to Noven Pharmaceuticals in 2007 for $125 million, Satow said.
Nutrition 21 currently markets six products, including Chromax chromium picolinate, described by Satow as the company”™s “flagship product,” and designed to address glucose metabolism and insulin resistance, appetite control and weight management, and heart health and cholesterol management, among other areas.
Satow said the company is actively developing several other products currently in its pipeline.
“Over the next year we”™ll be launching several new products in addition to the products that we”™re already selling,” he said.
The real potential, though, is in the drug development business, Satow said.
“Given our pharmaceutical background, some of the patents and compounds that the company owns, we feel, are suitable as drug candidates,” he said.
Satow said JDS Therapeutics L.L.C., which is owned by the Satows and is the parent company of Nutrition 21 L.L.C., is proceeding with two projects with the intention of developing them into drugs.
“I believe it”™s something new,” Satow said, adding that to his knowledge, Nutrition 21 did not seek to enter into the drug development business.
“I don”™t believe they had done it before, but they certainly laid a good groundwork for some of these assets as potential drugs. Based on that work we”™re going to move them hopefully forward from where they are.”
While Nutrition 21 does not own manufacturing facilities or research laboratories, it develops all of its products in-house, Satow said.
“The conceptualization of the product, the initial testing, those kinds of things are done by us,” he said.
Satow said manufacturing is contracted to outside sources, but it all takes place in the U.S.
He also said more than 75 clinical studies have been performed on Nutrition 21 products by universities and research institutes.
Nutrition 21 has added several employees since the initial acquisition, bringing the total staff to 16, Satow said.
“And we”™ll be adding additional employees next year,” he said, and upgrading its office space at The Centre at Purchase to accommodate a larger staff. The company is located at 4 Manhattanville Road and plans to move to 3 Manhattanville Road in August.
