By: Dylan Sikes - AllPennyStocks.com News

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Companies have been looking to harness the power of cell encapsulation technologies for quite some time. The potential uses are nearly unimaginable, ranging from basic nutrition to infectious disease therapies to utilization in cancer treatments and back again. In short, the technology involves encapsulating a cell to keep it protected from immune system rejection as a method of more efficient delivery, increased bioavailability and better safety and tolerability profiles. Live-cell encapsulation involves a semipermeable membrane that permits bi-directional flow, based up on a simple premise of keeping the cell alive and “letting the bad stuff out and keeping the good stuff in.” Unfortunately, the technology hasn’t lived up to its expectations yet at this point, but that trend seems to be slowing with some significant steps taken in recent years. Nuvilex, Inc. (OTCQB:NVLX) announced on Tuesday that it has contracted Fisher BioServices, a unit of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (NYSE:TMO), for the long-term storage of cells that the company will need for future Phase 3 and other cancer clinical trials. Using its cell encapsulation technology, Nuvilex has conducted a mid-stage clinical trial demonstrating that its platform can activate the widely used drug ifosfamide as a potential new oncology therapy.

In a different area of encapsulation, “superfoods” company Naturally Splendid Enterprises (TSX-Venture:NSP) said today that it has penned a non-disclosure agreement with Canadian food ingredients distributor Calico Food Ingredients Ltd. to test the plant-based Omega products H2Omega and HempOmega created by Boreal Technologies, a company previously known at Canadian Medical Hemp Inc. Superfoods are defined as being very dense in nutrients, yet low in calories. Naturally Splendid currently has a lineup of six different hemp-based products for sale that are sold in a retail network of over 300 stores in British Columbia and Alberta, including Save On Foods, Urban Fare, London Drugs and more.

HempOmega™ and H2Omega™ are proprietary, patent pending, powder and aqueous Omega products that utilize nano-encapsulation for increased nutritional benefits. The proprietary formulation uses encapsulation to increase shelf life and deliver a more targeted and sustained release of Omega oils into the bloodstream than conventional products today. Hemp is a rich source of Omega 3 and Omega 6 essential fatty acids, key acids for which many people take supplements to improve brain function, immune system and metabolism. All told, hemp contains all twenty-one amino acids, included nine essential amino acids that the body cannot produce on its own.

The global market for fatty acids products was $24.3 billion in 2011, according to the company.

The National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program provided some funding in the cost of development of Naturally Splendid’s delivery system for hemp-oil Omega products.

Calico supplies a range of products including nutritional, extracts and distillates, natural preservatives, food colors and flavorings sourced from around the world. For Naturally Splendid, Calico will begin testing and evaluating H2Omega and HempOmega this month to best determine markets and potential use in Calico’s nutritional pre-mixes and margarine pre-mix food ingredients.

"This is the first of many product distribution opportunities for Naturally Splendid to establish high volume sales pipelines with major food ingredient suppliers as well as food and beverage manufacturers. We are confident that this proprietary plant based Omega technology will offer more superior sustainable and nutritional profiles than existing Omegas products,” said Craig Goodwin, chief executive at Naturally Splendid, in a statement today.

Shares of NSP are getting a lift in Tuesday trading, rising to a two-month high at 20.5 cents before fading back to gains of 8.8 percent to 18.5 cents, albeit on only 47,500 shares in volume halfway through the trading day. Investors will be on the lookout for what Calico has to say about adding the line and additional potential sales channels. Proper due diligence is, as always, encouraged.

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