Manuka Health NZ

Manuka Health NZ Ltd was established in 2006 to formulate and manufacture healthcare products from NZ flora and fauna. In particular, bioactive compounds in manuka honey and propolis have been incorporated into an innovative range of functional foods, wound dressings, supplements, natural healthcare and personal care products. The company now has a turnover of nearly $30 million and exports to over 45 countries.

Kerry Paul is the driving force behind the company which he set up with others in 2006 to develop natural healthcare products from NZ's unique flora and fauna. Paul is no stranger to the food industry with 15 years of strategic management and senior management roles in the dairy and meat industries working on strategies from farm through processing to the international marketplace. Subsequently he spent six years working on commercialisation of various biotechnologies and developing businesses around them.

It was during this time that he saw the health potential for bioactive compounds from NZ native plants. Most of the tree and plant species in New Zealand are not found elsewhere in the world, so I saw an opportunity to develop these into natural health products and take them to the world. My previous career was merely training for this job because I worked in international markets and the whole supply chain from farm to marketplace, says Paul.

This business is the same. Beekeeping is a farming enterprise, and through characterising of bioactives and then harvesting them and retaining their bioactivity throughout the supply chain we can put them into product formats that make them efficacious for people looking for natural health solutions.

Our focus is in the natural healthcare space, and we formed Manuka Health New Zealand to undertake this strategic direction and develop the business based around taking the bioactive compounds in New Zealand plants and trees to the world, in the form of products that will help people improve their quality of life.

The initial goal was products that maintain good health but over time we have developed products designed to heal and cure.

The bioactives involved are in manuka honey and propolis raw materials produced in the plant and picked up and taken back to the colony by bees. The unique antibacterial properties of manuka honey have been documented since the 1980s when Dr Peter Molan of the University of Waikato confirmed that some strains of manuka yield honey have a very stable and powerful antibacterial activity not found in other varieties of honey. Most honeys have some antibacterial action as a result of the formation of hydrogen peroxide, but this activity is short lived because of heat, light and enzyme action. Manuka honey was found to retain a high level of activity even when hydrogen peroxide was removed. Laboratory techniques were found to assess the strength of this non-peroxide activity, and manuka honeys were given a Unique Manuka Factor (UMF) rating.

However, the identity of the active compound involved was not known until 2008 when researchers at the Technical University of Dresden established that methylglyoxal (MGO) was primarily responsible for the UMF activity. Kerry Paul says that MGO forms in manuka flower nectar and is found in manuka honey in amounts ranging from 100 to 500,000mg/kg.

In other honeys and foods you will find less than 2 mg/kg of MGO so manuka honey is unique, but you have to manage the supply well to ensure that the source honey has a high MGO level, he says.

It is important to make sure beehives are located at sites where the bees have only one source of nectar manuka. You place hives there just before it flowers and take away the honey just after it has finished flowering. We offer support to beekeepers and devise strategies for landowners to help ensure the purity of honey supplies.

Manuka honey is also anti-inflammatory, which assists wound healing. Although not unique in this regard it is far more powerful than other honeys, and this is again the result of its MGO content. Very recent research at the University of Waikato has shown the bee protein Apalbumin-1, found in all types of honey, is modified by reaction with MGO to make it far more potently anti-inflammatory.

Paul points out that for therapeutic uses manuka honey is not always ideal in its natural state. It is good at healing wounds, for example, but if you place it on directly, its low pH will cause a burning or stinging sensation and also body temperature warms the honey so that it runs off. To be effective the honey has to remain on the wound, he says. So you need to incorporate the honey into a medical device or a wound dressing that holds the honey on the wound and also has to be able to handle exudates that result from the bacterial infection and need to come out. So while the honey is a great raw material, to make it into a truly efficacious product that is going to cure or heal people it needs to be combined with other technologies and delivery formats.

We have done that with a specialised hydrogel dressing where we integrate manuka honey into a matrix that then releases the honey in a controlled fashion into the wound and at the same time captures or draws out the exudates from the wound. There are also pads for nursing mothers with cracked nipples or eczema. The dressing can be placed inside the bra between feeds to help the healing process.

Manuka Health's approach is not necessarily to start from scratch and develop new technologies but to adapt existing technologies to use as delivery options for their products. This is the case with wound care devices and also with the company's Cyclopower products.

In Japan we found a company that had worked with cyclodextrins in pharmaceutical uses and I saw the opportunity to combine that technology with New Zealand natural health bio-actives. MGO powder can be combined with cyclodextrins to form a range of products that deliver MGO to different parts of the body and release it slowly to treat bacterial infections, says Paul.

Examples are a chewable tablet for mouth and throat infections, a capsule to get down to the intestines where the product is far more effective than straight honey in treating Helicobacter pylori, which is implicated in stomach ulcers. And then there are creams, sprays and tablets to treat skin, ear, nose and throat problems.

New Zealand propolis is also uniquely rich in bioactive compounds that are not found at the same concentration in propolis from other countries. Some of these compounds have shown promise for blocking the formation of tumours, says Paul.

There is a particular metabolic pathway in the body that is controlled by an activator, and if that activator over-expresses it can lead to the production of tumours. 70% of all human cancers involve this pathway, he says.

The bioactive compounds in propolis appear to reduce the effect of this activator so that the body doesn't produce tumour cells. We did the initial research in mice where the formation of tumours of certain cancers was blocked by propolis, and then the researchers involved promoted our products to a number of people with various forms of cancer.

People who keep taking propolis and can sustain it for long periods seem to have some success. Some have found that it halts the growth of cancer and others that tumours have reduced in size. We also know that the products are effective against colon cancer cells in vitro but they haven't been trailed in vivo.

We have learnt what level of bioactive compound is needed in the products and how to make them more palatable. However, there have been no formal human trials and these results are anecdotal, so we see the propolis products as being complimentary to conventional therapies.

As well as the wound care and propolis products, the company markets other ranges including:

• Manuka honey with various levels of MGO

• Functional foods including combinations of Manuka honey with royal jelly green tea extract, glucosamine, bee venom or aloe vera

• Personal care products including skin creams, lip balm, body lotion, Manuka honey & propolis toothpastes

• Winter wellness products including throat sprays, syrups and lozenges

• Bioactive supplements such as bee pollen and royal jelly

• Gourmet honeys from other plant species

Given that the company started from scratch in 2006 its growth to 55 employees, exports of a wide range of products to 45 countries and a turnover of nearly $30 million is spectacular. Currently it operates from four sites in Auckland, Te Awamutu and the Wairarapa but most of its operations will be consolidated in Te Awamutu at a new site currently being developed.

Paul believes the potential for manuka products is huge internationally as more research is done and more people discover their value.

People want natural health solutions rather than relying on synthetic chemicals and pharmaceuticals, but they also want reliability and effectiveness, he says. We are focusing on the natural healthcare market with proven bioactive ingredients and good delivery systems. Manuka honey is really just at the start of its life cycle.