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Pharmaton unveils memory loss antidote in UAE

Pharmaton officials and their UAE partners yesterday launched gincosan, which they said would sell at least 20,000 packs in the country by next year. With 30 capsules, each pack is sold for Dh130, they said.

Luana Dresti Cecchetto, head of international sales at Pharmaton, said the UAE will lead its neighbours as the biggest market for gincosan because of its increasing population, and the harried and hurried lifestyle that its residents lead.

She said Pharmaton has been selling some 100,000 packs of gincosan in Saudi Arabia for the last two years due to its big number residents including foreign workers. Containing extracts from medicinal plants ginkgo biloba and ginseng, gincosan is also sold in Iran.

She added that global exports of gincosan hit Dh26.41 million (five million euros) in 2006, and sales have been increasing by an average 10 per cent per annum since the drug was first introduced in the market 20 years ago.

Gincosan, which increases the blood flow to the brain and therefore improves its supply of oxygen, is now sold in 50 countries. The UAE is its newest market which will be followed by Oman and Kuwait.

B R Shetty, managing director and CEO of NMC Group, said his marketing company engaged in pharmaceuticals and hospital supplies is the distributor of gincosan in the UAE.

Pharmaton's head of international public relations, Gilbert Mast, said the Swiss pharmaceutical company allots at least 10 per cent of its turnover for research and development activities.

Andrea Zangara, from the Human Cognitive Neuroscience Unit of Northumbria University, in the UK, said the trials conducted for gincosan had resulted to its older subjects having reversed cognitive ageing similar to those of people aged 18 to 25.

He added that all trials had beneficial effects on the participants' cognitive function especially on long-term memory for words and pictures, working memory for numbers and location, speed of memory process and power of concentration.

Stressing that "natural" doesn't always mean "safe", Pharmaton's head of medical affairs Roger Tschopp warned against using herbal products that had been processed in unregulated environments.

He said that responsible manufacturers of scientifically proven phyto-pharmaceuticals do control the natural ingredients of their products from the cultivation of the plant to its finished form.

He stressed that Pharmaton's aim is to ensure the high quality, efficacy and safety of the final phyto-pharmaceutical preparation independent of the natural source.