The fat reduction category is an area of potential in nutraceuticals, given the current obesity crisis in the Western world.
According to the International Obesity Taskforce, 27.7 percent of American men aged 20 to 74 years are obese (body mass index over 30), and 34 percent of women.
In this context fat-reducers can boost dietary and lifestyle approaches to weight loss, and help people reduce the risk of developing serious obesity related diseases, such as type-II diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The collaboration will allow Unigen to exploit the therapeutic potential of its collection of medicinal plant extracts in the fat reduction area, using AdipoGenix's cell-based technologies for the identification of non-toxic small molecule compounds that reduce the fat content in human fat tissue.
Unigen has natural product library with more than 3,000 plant extracts and more than 100,000 HTP (high throughput purification) fractions ready for high throughput screening.
The project is to be jointly funded by Unigen and AdipoGenix.
Unigen's role is to identify and produce active molecules from active extracts, while AdipoGenix is to characterize the mechanisms of action and molecular targets from active molecules that are taken into development.
The two parties will each keep the worldwide rights to commercialize resulting products in a certain field - that is, Unigen for nutraceutical or cosmeceutical products, and AdiopGenix for pharmaceutical products.
"We believe that this collaboration is a tremendous opportunity to develop novel plant-derived products that address this important health concern," said Unigen president and COO Regan Miles.
"This is an important part of our strategy to expand our offerings in the large and growing market for natural weight control products."
Unigen already markets DiAfin, a clinical trial-backed proprietary blend of flavonoids and flavans from two plant extracts that aids the body's metabolism enouraging weight loss and helping users to maintain a healthy weight.