Nature's Wonder Drugs

For nearly a decade, Robert Gow and a team of scientists have been quietly amassing a massive library of botanical compounds.

Gow, a successful real estate entrepreneur and Bonita Springs-based private-equity investor, has been trying to solve the mysteries that big pharmaceutical companies have been unable to unlock despite the fact they've spent billions of dollars in research.

In many cultures, particularly in Asia, compounds from plants are widely used to treat a pantheon of ailments, from sprains to allergies and viruses. But scientists have been stumped by what makes those compounds so effective, how they work and how to make them consistently effective.

“Everyone told me I was crazy,” says Gow, whose business ventures included a merchant bank in China.

Of course, those are just the words that drive entrepreneurs like Gow to even greater lengths. So in 2002 he formed HerbalScience Group and recruited scientists to build a treasure trove of botanical compounds from common foods such as rice and broccoli.

Today, Gow's challenge to the pharmaceutical industry is proceeding with the formation of VR Laboratories, a Bonita Springs-based company that has licensed HerbalScience's discoveries and is scheduled to start manufacturing botanical remedies next year. VR recently hired former Florida Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp as its CEO and General Electric's Senior Scientific Advisor for Biomedical Research James Rothman. VR's chairman is Reginald Steele, senior vice president in charge of international sales for General Nutrition Corp. Gow says he expects VR's sales to reach as much as $350 million in the third year.

But success wasn't evident in 2002. Faced with such odds, Gow had to invest his own money in the effort. He declines to say how much he has invested; HerbalScience employs nine scientists at a sophisticated laboratory in Bonita Springs and two outside scientific advisers.

Gow had to invest his own money despite the fact that he'd successfully raised millions of dollars for Peak Capital, a private-equity firm he founded with other investors after retiring to Southwest Florida in 1997. For example, the private-equity firm was one of the founding investors for Prestige Brands, with products such as Prell shampoo and Comet cleaner.

It was while he was investigating the possible acquisition of Slim-Fast that Gow realized the potential for botanical medicine. Slim-Fast, the diet-products company, had a “nutraceutical” line of products, or foods marketed with health benefits. While analyzing that business, Gow says he realized how botanical compounds could compete with large pharmaceutical companies whose drug patents were gradually expiring.

While Gow's scientists could show that botanical compounds were effective, the challenge was to be able to show effectiveness consistently. “The consistency was just one problem,” Gow says. Scientists also had to figure out how these compounds alleviated or cured symptoms of diseases ranging from the flu to Alzheimer's. “What's in it and how does it work?” they asked.

The experts Gow consulted early in the 2000s told him those secrets would take 20 to 30 years to unravel. “I did not know how long it would take,” he says.

But Gow says his scientists have overcome those obstacles in the last 10 years of research, revealing some of their results in peer-reviewed medical publications. For example, their published research shows extracts from turmeric can help patients with Alzheimer's disease and elderberry extract can alleviate flu symptoms.

What's more, because these extracts come from foods that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration already considers safe, the drug-approval process takes less than two years compared with 10 years or longer for other drugs.

HerbalScience researchers been able to solve these scientific puzzles because Gow says he brought together scientists from different disciplines, from engineers to biologists, chemists and geneticists. The results are stunning: Gow says 600 extract ingredients are ready for product development with thousands more on the way. He estimates he has a five- to eight-year lead over potential competitors. “We have a time lead and cost barriers in our favor,” he says.