By Allan Maurer
MIAMI, FL—After years of suffering severe arthritis pain and growing ill from traditional drug treatments, bioengineer Mark Lubin developed an herbal remedy that produced dramatic results in a recent clinical trial. In the trial his supplement, marketed by Miami-based RZN Nutraceuticals, eliminated severe arthritis pain for everyone receiving it in 14 days.
Miami-based RZN Nutraceuticals, where Lubin is chief scientist, says its Arthri-Zen Relief, eradicated extreme arthritis pain for 50 subjects with pain rated at the highest levels in the 30-day clinical trial.
The randomized, placebo-controlled trial on 75 people produced dramatic results. Independent Fenestra Research Labs conducted the trial, in which the 50 people who received the Arthri-Zen Relief formula were pain free by day 14. This was the third clinical trial conducted with the supplement.
The product is made from a proprietary blend of extracts of juniper, goldenrod, dandelion, meadowsweet and willow bark, conjugated to fruit sugars and polysaccharides in a patent-pending delivery system that promotes absorption. It sells for $29.99 a bottle.
Traditional treatments made him sick
Lubin, a 25-year veteran biomedical engineer and research scientist who holds more than a dozen patents or patents pending in orthopedics, joint diseases, implantable cardiac devices, materials science and medical chemistry, started RZN Nutraceuticals in 1999.
“He developed pacemakers and stents,” says Robert Hunt, CEO of RZN Nutraceuticals. “He has severe osteoarthritis in part caused by a gymnastic accident he had as a kid. As a biomedical engineer, his instinct was to take Celebrex and every pharmaceutical there was to treat arthritis. But as a result of taking those he had to take other products for his liver, kidneys, blood pressure and stomach problems they caused.
Over the years, Lubin had 12 major arthritis-related joint surgeries on his shoulders, wrists, thumbs, knees, hip and feet and was in pain every day.
“In the midst of traveling the world lecturing on implantable cardiac devices,” says Hunt, “he looked in a mirror one morning and saw that his eyes were yellow. He thought, this stuff is making me sick.”
Going herbal
Then, Lubin’s wife Ellen developed blunt trauma arthritis after a tennis fall, and Lubin did not want her to suffer through the same unsuccessful regimen he had.
Lubin’s father had extended his life beyond doctors expectations using herbs. That inspired him to begin research that took three and half years.
He combed the literature to find herbal remedies for arthritis pain. He wanted a gentle approach without adverse side-effects.
Eventually, combining his findings from looking at centuries of herbal use with modern chemical analysis, he invented both his combination of herbs and a delivery system intended to “break the cycle of pain.”
“They’re herbs that have been used for thousands of years for a combination of things that result from arthritis: pain, inflammation, and swelling.”
The CEO comes aboard
Then Lubin found a way to get the supplement into the system so that it isn’t attacked in the stomach as foreign, a process that often results in much less of a supplement such as vitamin C or aspirin being absorbed.
That method turned out to be providing simple sugars in the form of grape extract and other polysaccharides. When processed according to the company’s proprietary method it lets the supplement pass through the stomach to be absorbed in the intestine.
Hunt, who sold an organic soup company and was managing four or five start-ups, became involved and invested, expediting getting the product into the capsules the company sells.
The company did not have a lot of money for marketing, so it spent what funds it had on clinical trials of its products by independent labs. The surprising and positive results are available on the company’s Web site under “Research.”
“From my perspective as a sales and marketing person,” says Hunt, “we face challenges that an over-the-counter (OTC) product does not.” For instance, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration limits what the company can claim for its products, including its remedy for migraine headaches, which also performed exceedingly well in independent clinical trials.
Expansion funds sought
He says the company has not sold a lot of its product in the United States thus far.
So, while they cannot claim the products eliminate pain, they can report the clinical trial results.
Hunt says the five-employee company is talking with a potential investor right now but will seek others if those talks do not work out. It seeks from $5 million to $10 million to develop additional products, run more clinicals, and prepare to launch its product line.
The company is also in discussions with a pharmaceutical company starting a nutraceuticals supplement line, as well as with people in Hong Kong, China, Europe and Russia about marketing the products.
Hunt points out that traditional arthritis medicines such as Celebrex are an $8 billion a year market. The over-the-counter supplements Glucosamine and chondrotin are a $280 million market, and they only work for a quarter of the people who can actually absorb them.
The company offers a free week’s samples of its products on its Web site.
For more information see: www.rznnutra.com
Allan Maurer can be reached at: allan@techjournalsouth.com
For more information see: www.rznutra.com
Email Allan Maurer at: allan@techjournalsouth.com
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