NZ: Honey producer wins US Food and Drug Admin approval
Updated
New Zealand honey producer, Comvita has won approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration to market its manuka honey for the treatment of burns and wounds. The bee products company has produced a special honey from the prolifically flowering manuka - a leptospernum known locally as native ti-tree - which is highly attractive to bees.
Presenter: Myra Mortensen
Speakers: Brett Hewlett, CEO Comvita
HEWLETT: Well all honey is known to have sort of healing properties and it's been well known in history to be used for treating the wounds and burns in particular, but Manuka has some rather unique properties and antibacterial properties, and they seem to be much longer lasting and much stronger, much more potent than other honeys. So that's really its uniqueness is around its antibacterial properties.
MORTENSEN: Well when were the healing properties of honey actually known? You say it's been known for some years, does it go back as far as ancient times?
HEWLETT: It's cited in the bible and in the Koran, it's rumoured that ancient Egyptians used it for healing wounds. But I guess in more modern times, as recent as the First and Second World Wars it was often cited as a favoured treatment for wounds out in the field.
MORTENSEN: Also for burns?
HEWLETT: Yes for burns, yes, it's very effective there.
MORTENSEN: Well how has it just come to be fashionable once again?
HEWLETT: It's been referred to as one of the forgotten arts of medicine. I guess with the invent of modern day antibiotics and so on they sort of went away from natural ways of healing. So it's been sort of rediscovered. So that the world started out of Waikato University, a Professor Peter Molan was very intrigued by the story of, that he had heard of Manuka and of honey, and he started to research and study it further. And that started almost 30 years ago, and I guess the more serious science has been uncovered in the last ten years.
MORTENSEN: Now the honey that is used to treat wounds is not the honey that we would have on our toast?
HEWLETT: Predominantly not, mostly because it's far too expensive and far too good to be spread around on toast. There's a higher level of activity which is really partly linked to the purity of the honey, but also linked to which part of the country it comes from, and some of that honey now has obviously started to attract much higher prices, so it's become more and more expensive. It's a very expensive food but it's a really cheap medicine.
MORTENSEN: The Manuka that grows in your area has a higher content of these curative organisms?
HEWLETT: Yes the Australian Manuka it's often referred to also has activity, so it can be detected, but in general the Manuka from New Zealand, the leptospermum scoparium, is cited to have much higher levels of it.
MORTENSEN: Not only for use in treating wounds and burns, but also in keeping winter nasties at bay I believe?
HEWLETT: Yes that's right; actually original anecdotally most of the honey that we sell is actually sold for digestive health. So people actually take it to help with digestion, it's known to be very, very effective which could be related, we're not 100 per cent sure to its wound healing properties, very effective against stomach ulcers which is very prevalent in the Asian population. So Asians have known for many years that honey is very good for people that suffer from stomach conditions, dyspepsia and such like.
MORTENSEN: And its uses also encouraged in the treatment of diabetes?
HEWLETT: We don't recommend necessarily the use by diabetics; it is a concern as honey is after all a sugar.
MORTENSEN: Well this seems to be quite a paradox if it is?
HEWLETT: It is quite a paradox and I guess doctors are still a little bit bemused as to whether they should recommend it for diabetics. We've used it on diabetic's foot ulcers for example, diabetics that have wounds, and it's worked very effectively and there's been no increase in sugar blood levels. But still we don't know enough about it to actually openly say we recommend it for diabetics.
MORTENSEN: So when did you start the export of medicinal honey worldwide?
HEWLETT: Medicinal honey now is probably going back six to seven years now when we started to research and look at the commercial opportunities. Realistically sales have probably only been in the last three to four years.
MORTENSEN: And now that you have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration your export sales should certainly skyrocket?
HEWLETT: Well we certainly hope so; I don't know about skyrocket, I guess the hard work now really starts. The shackles are off and we can get on with what we've been planning on for some time now. Of course we still have to sell it; we still have the difficulties of selling it to hospitals and convincing doctors that it's a very serious and acceptable way of treating serious wounds. Well we've had CE approval, that's the equivalent of the FDA in Europe; we've had now for two years and so we have been able to sell it in Europe and other parts of the world. But really worldwide the FDA is a final signoff, without it really you're sort of less than got half the approval. So it does mean that we can really get on with it and we're very excited of course about the growth opportunities.
MORTENSEN: In money terms what will it mean to you?
HEWLETT: At the moment the medical honey is around ten per cent of our business which represents say something between four and five million dollars a year, so without wanting to put a number to it I think I'd be disappointed if it didn't become a much more significant part of our total business within the next three years.
