.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} There may be no magic bullet that can prevent colds or allergies, but Paul Faganel believes Embria Health Sciences has come close to finding one.

Late this month, Embria expects to begin manufacturing its immunity-boosting supplement, EpiCor, in its new 36,000-square-foot production plant at 2105 S.E. Creekview Drive in Ankeny.

In results from a recent clinical test conducted for the company, participants taking EpiCor experienced a 32 percent reduction in company sick time used for colds, flu or allergies.

“If you put that into a business perspective, having 32 percent fewer people missing, gone 32 percent less of the time, from a productivity standpoint alone, that is huge,” said Faganel, the company’s president. “Then if you start looking at costs associated with health insurance, that number becomes even more significant.”

Employees of Embria, a wholly owned subsidiary of Diamond V Mills Inc., a Cedar Rapids-based animal feed supplement company, experienced similar results from taking the product. In the past year, Diamond V and Embria had no increase in health insurance premiums; their employees get the supplement as a company benefit.

Nutrition supplement sales represented a $22.5 billion market in the United States last year, a 5.4 percent increase over 2005, according to data from Nutrition Business Journal. The industry sold $1.5 billion in cold and flu immunity-building supplements in 2006, an 8 percent increase from 2005.

EpiCor is a unique ingredient in the dietary supplement market, Faganel said, because unlike herbs or vitamins that support the immune system, it actually balances the immune system.

“Think of your immune system as a teeter-totter,” he said. “If at one end your immune system takes a dip and become suppressed, you’re more susceptible to colds and flu. If your immune system becomes overactive, however, you’re more likely to suffer from allergy symptoms. Our product really helps balance that out.”

Embria, which will move its fledgling manufacturing operation from Diamond V’s plant in Cedar Rapids, sells the raw ingredient to supplement companies across the country, such as Doctor’s Best, General Nutrition Centers Inc. and Healthy Origins. Those companies package it for sale as a once-a-day supplement pill or as part of their own supplement formulas. Embria plans to develop new customers for its product in the functional foods industry as well, and is now registering its product to be sold in several other countries, including Brazil, Canada, Japan and Korea.

“I’d like to be at the point where we’re selling $10 million in EpiCor annually within three years,” Faganel said. The company will receive more than $1 million in economic development incentives from the state and the city of Ankeny if it creates at least 40 jobs within the next five years. The company currently employs 10 people.

Diane Lahodny, owner of Campbell’s Nutrition Center, said EpiCor is popular not just in Iowa, but across the country. “We are mail-ordering it all over,” said Lahodny, whose three stores have carried the EpiCor product sold by Healthy Origins for about the past six months.

The product is most popular with her Baby Boomer-aged customers, as well as her own employees, who regularly use it from the employees’ wellness cupboard, Lahodny said. Campbell’s sells a 30-day supply of the capsules for $24.95.

Based on the early success of EpiCor and scientific studies backing its effectiveness, Embria projects that it will rapidly grow into its new headquarters.

“We’ve built with a lot of additional capacity for growth,” said Faganel, gesturing toward a large white production room where a single fermentation tank now sits. “We figured it was easier and less expensive to build it now rather than keep adding piece by piece.”

The company’s highly automated proprietary fermentation and drying technology is based on a multistage process used by Diamond V for more than 60 years. The facility, which meets the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Good Manufacturing Practice regulations, incorporates features such as a pressurized clean room with an air lock to keep dust and other impurities out, and walls and floors that can be completely washed down between production cycles.

“We have all sorts of plans, now that we have our own facility, to look at ways to possibly add additional ingredients, or enhance certain components of what we already have,” Faganel said. For instance, the company hopes to develop a stand-alone allergy-prevention product, as well as determine the effectiveness of smaller doses for use in the emerging functional foods market.

To conduct its research, Embria will work with both the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, which operates the Center for Designing Foods to Improve Nutrition.

“There are several things I think ISU could help us with, especially in the sports nutrition area,” Faganel said. “People want to get more of those (nutrition) benefits every day from the foods they eat, so I think we’re going to see a lot more functional foods. Beverages are another huge area right now.”

The company also hopes to work with Central Iowa businesses that may want to provide supplements as an employee benefit.

“That’s an area we would like to work on with companies to pilot,” Faganel said. “By working with companies, we would have more data on the benefits. I think it would be very interesting to show that.”