Just over 2 weeks ago, we posted a press release to our website outlining a new line of cost-effective contract research services offered to startup and small biopharmaceutical companies. While it may be a surprise to many that we are opening our doors to other companies, we believe that by using the tools, labs, and certifications we already have in place, we can provide a much needed service, while at the same time become more financially sustainable.

What is financial sustainability? For Nutra Pharma, this means positioning the company in such a way that we will require less, or no, reliance on external sources of capital to cover our ongoing R&D burn rate.

For the past several years, Nutra Pharma has been primarily funded by our Chairman and CEO, Rik J. Deitsch. Even though the company is as strong as ever and Mr. Deitsch has committed to continuing to support the company, it would still be in the best interest of our shareholders to move the company towards becoming financially sustainable. Our contract research services provide the first step in that direction.

As we continue to gain traction with our new services, we are also planning to introduce an additional business unit focusing on over-the-counter products that has the potential to provide us with immediate revenue. Although we cannot provide details on the scale or scope of this project, we do plan to release additional information over the next several weeks.

With all of the discussion surrounding financial sustainability, it is important to emphasize that our goal remains, first and foremost, to continue developing our drug pipeline. We are researching several exciting drug candidates, and as many of you already know, our pipeline contains several potential blockbuster indications, including Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Becoming financially sustainable does not detract from this focus; it simply allows us to be better positioned for long-term success.

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Monday officially kicked-off Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Awareness Week. Because of this, we wanted to take the opportunity to share with you some information about this disease as well as our ongoing commitment to developing a treatment for MS.

For those of you that are not familiar with MS, it is a chronic disease of the central nervous system (CNS) and one of the most common of demyelinating disorders, having a prevalence of approximately 1 per 1000 persons in the United States and Europe. A conservative estimate suggests 300,000 people in the United States are affected by MS, with a global population reaching as many as 3.0 million people.

The disease is characterized primarily by inflammation, demyelination, and axonal injury. In MS, the insulating fatty material surrounding the nerve fibers, known as myelin, which functions to enhance signaling from one end of the nerve cell to the other, is attacked by cells of the immune system causing deficits in signal transduction.

Although the etiology of MS is still unknown, many findings point toward a central role for the immune system in the pathogenesis of the disease. This hypothesis is strongly supported by the beneficial effects of immunomodulatory and immunosuppressive therapy on disease activity. This is where our research fits in.

Many of you may already be familiar with our leading drug candidate, RPI-78M, being studied as a treatment for neurological and autoimmune disorders. Recently, we completed a Phase IIb/IIIa clinical trial using RPI-78M as a treatment for Adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN). In addition to this research in AMN, we have also been completing, Pre-Clinical, Phase I, and open labels trials using RPI-78M for treating MS.

Through these trials, we have observed promising results showing that RPI-78M has the potential to become one of the most novel treatments for MS. Our observations include the following, all without significant adverse side effects:

• Improved Quality of Life
• Reduced Chronic Fatigue
• Improved Walking Ability
• Greater Strength
• Little Advancement in Disease

As we move through our clinical development program, our focus on RPI-78M and its use as a novel treatment for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) will become a more prominent topic on our website and blog. In the meantime, for those that would like further information about our past published research in Multiple Sclerosis (MS), please feel free to review these links to our peer-reviewed articles:

• Alpha cobratoxin as a Possible Therapy for Multiple Sclerosis: A Review of the Literature leading to Its Development for This Application (PDF)
• Amelioration of acute and relapsing stages of the Experimental Allergic Encephalomyelitis by Cobra Toxins (PDF)

Additional Resources

• National MS Society