Swedish pharma business Mimer Medical has passed the first hurdle in the “protracted and confusing world of supplement health claim substantiation” after EFSA deemed its dossier as valid and admissible for formal scientific review.
“It’s very inspiring to get this far. We think this it’s a significant milestone in the process we have been working so hard towards for the last two to three years,” said Professor Jan Bruhn, an eminent professor of pharmacognosy and senior vice president of R&D at Mimer Medical.
Despite having a huge wealth of experience in pharma research and regulation, the small team of senior experts, some of whom came out of retirement for this project, have found the world of supplement health claim substantiation a significant challenge.
“EFSA received 61 health claim applications between 2010 and 2020 and it rejected 55 of those, so it’s no easy task to get through this process,” Bruhn told NI.
The team filed an application in September last year (2025), for the claim, “consumption of Appethyl as part of a meal prolongs satiety and reduces cravings after that meal”.
These specific benefits are backed by five clinical trials. For example, a 2015 study, covered by NutraIngredients associated a single 5 gram dose of the spinach extract with a 43% greater weight loss and 85% reduction in cravings for unhealthy foods.
After reaching scientific review, Mimer Medical is open to acquisition offers for the Appethyl project, including patents, trademarks, and clinical and technical documentation.
“In the beginning we were aiming at producing and marketing, but then we realized that in our team of retired people, we should pass the project to a company within the field.”
Publicly available portions of the dossier can be accessed through the EFSA site.
“The project requires a team with expertise in both scientific substantiation and regulation,” Bruhn told NI. “It’s a baby of Swedish research so we are anxious to place it in safe hands.”
A Swedish brainchild
Appethyl was originally the brainchild of Lund University professor Charlotte Erlanson-Albertsson and her husband Per-Åke Albertsson, a professor of biochemistry, who began integrating their expertise in weight management and photosynthesis nearly two decades ago.
It is a spinach extract enriched for thylakoids, the cellular membranes responsible for photosynthesis which are reported to slow fat digestion and thereby increase the body’s production of satiety hormones GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) and CCK (cholecystokinin).
Swedish firm Greenleaf Medical previously licensed the manufacturing from Lund University but after a culmination of events including the loss of major investment, the firm went bankrupt, and the ingredient disappeared from the market in 2023.
Mimer Medical purchased the IP and enrolled the inventor Professor Charlotte Erlanson-Albertsson, now widowed, with the aim to revive the botanical which the team believes to have huge potential, especially in toady’s thriving weight management market.
Bruhn noted the supplements market is full of natural GLP-1 agonist drug competitors but argued Appethyl’s USP is its ability to impact two hunger hormones, giving it a ‘broader’ and therefore more ‘gentle’ impact on the consumer compared to drugs.
Mimer has partnered with New York based M&A firm Clairfield International, through whom interested parties can make contact.
