Strong science has enabled a Tauranga company to cosy up with the world's biggest consumer goods company, Proctor and Gamble – a company with sales twice the size of the New Zealand economy.
'P&G is an enormous company, annual sales in the $80 billion region, and obviously a relationship or partnership would be excellent for us,” says says Dr Shaun Holt, co-founder of the healthcare company, HoneyLab.
P&G boasts a portfolio of household name brands like Vicks, Gillette, Pantene, Head and Shoulders, Ariel, Olay and Pampers.
HoneyLab has developed Honevo, a medical grade kanuka honey formulation for dermatology, nutrition, cosmetics, cough and cold and pain products. It's used in the treatment of acne, rosacea and cold sores.
Shaun can't go into the specifics of its relationship with P&G. 'But what we set out to do was license our products – we would develop the products and then a company like P&G would license them, they would take it over and pay us a royalty.”
That's potentially far more lucrative. 'But it's also a hard battle,” says Shaun.
The other option for the company was not to invest in research and development, and instead build its brand and sell its own products. That's what most companies do. 'We adopted the alternative strategy and I think it's starting to pay off.”
Honeylab would not get all of the sales price, it would get a cut. But with the volume of sales P&G could generate it could be a better deal. 'It's a big partner, it's overseas and it's got the grunt to bang the products out globally.”
And, of course, the New Zealand company would still be supplying the crucial component, the kanuka honey. 'It can only come from New Zealand. And unlike IT companies, which can shift to San Francisco or wherever, our honey can only ever come from NZ.”
P&G may operate out of Cincinnati, Ohio, but kanuka honey means Honeylab products will always be wedded to the Bay of Plenty.
And when Honeylab went courting a global partner it was difficult getting an audience, getting in front of the big players.
'I would go to partnering conferences, speed dating for pharmaceuticals. You would have 20 half-hour meetings, you would pitch your stuff, rush off to the next meeting and they would get back if interested.”
They also had an American agent, an expert in pharmaceuticals, who finds partners. 'All of the big companies get approached all the time by natural product companies – but they're not at all interested because they don't have strong science behind their products.”
And that was the differentiating factor for Honeylab. 'Because we have strong, strong science.” And one of nature's purest foods to start with. 'We have had our two main studies published in the ‘British Medical Journal' and it doesn't get better than that.”
Shaun says hopefully there will be some nice, positive follow-up news from the world's biggest consumer goods company, a company with five billion customers in 70 countries worldwide.
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