Irish ‘milk mining’ initiative gathers pace

FHI, a new partnership between Irish dairy processors and research organisations, will isolate components with the most potential with a view to starting clinical trials in 12-18 months, said chief executive Jens Bleiel.

While firms such as DSM had expertise in using enzymes to chop up milk proteins into peptides, FHI was adopting a more systematic approach using bioinformatics, which increased the predictability of the potential functionality of the peptides, said Bleiel.The results will then be used to guide traditional methods of enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation.

Potential applications were in infant nutrition, cardiovascular health, immunity, obesity and muscle metabolism in the elderly, he said. "I think this is a model for the way that food research will work in the future. The companies involved [Glanbia, Kerry, Carbery and Dairygold] are direct competitors, but they have recognised that at the pre-competitive stage, it makes sense to pool resources."

Given the high cost of human intervention studies required to support health claims, companies would increasingly have to work together to fund research and instead compete through applications and marketing, said Bleiel.

While only a fraction of applications had been successful to date, exactly what the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was looking for to support a health claim in the EU was now much clearer, he said.

"If you are researching novel bioactives now, you are actually in a good position. We've learned from firms such as Provexis [which has secured a positive opinion from EFSA] that you actually only need a couple of well-designed studies to secure a claim."