Nestle starts medical food business

Nestlé, which is based in Vevey, Switzerland said Monday it will develop two new units centered on promoting health nutrition to help prevent and treat conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The food titan stated it would “pioneer a new industry between food and pharma” through its subsidiary Nestle Health Science and a research and development centre in Switzerland.

The Vevey-based company is among the world’s largest makers of processed foods including Nesquik cereal, Haagen-Dazs ice cream and Nespresso coffee, with sales of some $100 billion last year.

Nestlé Health Science, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nestlé, will become functional on January 1, 2011. The new unit would have access to external technological and scientific information through Nestlé’s innovation network as well as a number of venture capital funds in which the group has interests.

Chief executive Paul Bulcke said the group wanted to ‘capture this exciting business opportunity.’ The multinational is aiming to use the new outfits to develop ‘personalised health science nutrition to prevent and treat health conditions such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease, which are placing an unsustainable burden on the world’s health care systems.’

The Institute will be operated by Emmanuel Baetge, former Chief Scientific Officer of ViaCyte, a biotech company based in San Diego. He will report to Nestlé Chief Technology Officer Werner Bauer and a Steering Committee compiled of both Nestlé and external members.