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Reader Question
.
What does this poker player, Matt Giannetti,
and these well know pro athletes have in common?
Tiger Woods
David Ortiz
The following current or ex pro football players are also involved:
Arian Foster - Texans
Ronde Barber - Giants
Torrey Smith - Ravens
Paul Soliai - Dolphins
Nolan Carrol - Dolphins
Jimmy Smith - Jaguars
Derek Sherrod - Packers
Tyron Smith - Cowboys
Mike Neal - Packers
The answer is they are all sponsors of FUSE. So what’s Fuse you might ask? It’s a drink. The sponsors and the company are touting this stuff as the next Gatorade. The description of the new product from the company's 10-Q is interesting:
Fuse Science has successfully developed sublingual, buccal, and transdermal delivery systems for bioactive agents that can now for the first time, effectively encapsulate and charge many varying molecules in order to produce complete product formulations which can bypass the GI track and enter the blood stream directly.
The Fuse Science proprietary technology definitively penetrates the mucosa and epithelium to achieve complete and enhanced absorption. It is our firm belief that at this moment we can deliver a wide range of product formulations via these delivery systems such as aspirin, OTC pain, allergy, and cough & cold medications, as well as energy source, electrolytes and many pharmaceutical applications.
This reads like something from Merck rather than an energy drink company. So who is behind this? Some big shots like Coke or Pepsi? Possibly Triad? No, actually the company behind this is, well, not much at all.
Something called Double Eagle Holdings (currently listed in the Pinks - symbol DROP) is the proud owner of FUSE. Some highlights on DROP:
-Last seen, the stock was trading at 43 cents. Up from next to nothing not long ago.
-There are 90 odd million shares outstanding, and therefore a market cap of a lousy $39mm.
-The company has no earnings at all.
-The 10-Q (from June) lists the company’s current liabilities at $507,000, and its current assets of only $300,000. Basically, the company is balls to the wall.
-Because the company has no money, the sponsors are likely getting a ride on the upside with stock. I have no idea what option deals were offered to the big name sponsors.
Let me be clear on a few things. (1) I don’t now, nor have I ever in the past owned any DROP. And (2) I most certainly am not touting this. But I am curious; this is all a bit unusual.
My problem with this is that I can’t believe that a guy like Tiger would put FUSE (exclusively) on his bag unless he actually had tried the drink (and he liked it). If it’s later shown that all these guys are falsely endorsing this product it would them look very bad indeed. These pros are not dumb. They have tons of money and good lawyers. So I’m confused.
I’m not above a "punt" now and then. I was looking at DROP in that vein. After all, the energy drink business will top $9B in sales this year. Sports drinks as a category will exceed $20B. I would appreciate anyone's thoughts on this one.
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If you want to know if this is a serious investment look at the executives of the company. Have they had experience in this field? Have they brought out successful products before? What were they doing before they started this new company?
Have they done any market research? What exactly is their business plan? How much money do they need to start up and how much do they have now?
You can make some assessment of the risk involved then decide if and how much you want to invest based on the evaluation of the risk.
I"m not an mba or a venture capitalist but I assume there is a standard process for assessing start ups. So try to find out what that is and then use that. Google "how to evaluate a startup". There is information out there.
They just filed an information statement yesterday. They are changing the name to Fuse Science
They have reserved 60,000,000 shares to issue to endorsers.
They just raised an additional $500k. It appears that much of the early funding came from the father of one of the founders
They have not been paying salaries to their officers until just recently. They are now paying the top 3 guys 216K a piece. They will obviously need a lot more money soon
They appear to have been a more or less inactive BDC until last October when they acquired a company with the Fuse Science technology.
Their 10K described the acquisition and technology as follows:
Effective October 18, 2010, the Company entered into a Letter of Intent ("LOI") with M.E. "Hank" Durschlag, its CEO to acquire Pocket Drops, Inc. and Skin Science, Inc. The Company is seeking debt and equity financing to complete the purchase and begin marketing. Pocket Drops has developed several concentrated sublingual drops to include electrolytes for sports, caffeine drops for energy and vitamin drops for children. Skin Science is a patent-pending system including manufactured thin film incorporating natural and synthetic active ingredients that when applied in conjunction with heat and moisture increase the overall health and beauty of your skin. Skin Science has also formulated a product for acne treatment. The description is not quite the same as the current description of the business. Durschlag was previously CEO of a company called Healthsport which tried to market a somewhat related technology. They later went BK. I would want answers to a lot more questions before I would invest. I imagine Tiger's lawyers would have had the same questions, but I am not willing to outsource my due diligence1 bourbon, 1 scotch and 1 beer does the trick for me, to each their own.
Don't eat or drink anything your grandmother didn't eat or drink.
Many here point out that this is not a drink, but a tablet.
The fellow who brought this to my attention suggested that a drink was a possibility down the road. But I don't really know.
The comments here and in some other places do not convince me either way that this is a punt or not. I was hoping for some real insight from the blogs.
Ah well, there never was a free lunch....
I see a couple of problems with this company's strategy.
1. The FDA could and likely would view this as a drug delivery system and therefore demand studies to show safety and efficacy. This costs money and takes time. Most medical companies start testing overseas, because it is cheaper and easier and in many cases the data can at least partially be used in the final study for the FDA. It doesn't look like they've got enough dough to run a study.
2. If in fact it does allow direct access to the blood stream, bypassing the GI system, it means
a.doses would need to be strictly controlled to prevent overdose or metabolic imbalances.
b. adulterants or any toxic materials inadvertantly contained in the product either through poor quality control, bad manufacturing practices, or leaching from packaging materials, would also have direct access to the blood stream allowing for more & faster damage to the liver,brain and assorted other organs.
c. you could have reactions with other drugs the person is using either perscription or illicit.
It looks like an interesting idea, but they would need to do the studies, a whole lot of great ideas and drugs have died in the clinical trials stage. That's why stocks pop so large, when the FDA approves their products.
Can you please post this penny-stock-pumper bullshit on a different site?
Don't even go there with "...Let me be clear on a few things. (1) I don’t now, nor have I ever in the past owned any DROP. And (2) I most certainly am not touting this. But I am curious; this is all a bit unusual..."
You are touting this. That's the article. It's a tout.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Lebed
Sheer bluster. If they had the nuts as they claim they would not be talking about it, they would be raising money privately. You are not going to find an insolvent penny stock sitting on a major technological breakthrough. Geeeez.
Bruce,
I didn't watch the videos or check the 10-Q, but from looking at the Powered By Fuse website it does look like this is a gel, not a drink.
However, for me the killer is "It is our firm belief that at this moment we can deliver a wide range of product formulations via these delivery systems".
There's types of medical breakthroughs that people "firmly believe" in.
Then there's medical breakthroughs which are proven by actual clinical tests (preferably double-blind) with actual results. If FUSE had those clinical tests (or was even in the planning stages of them) I think they'd be saying something a lot more definite than "It is our firm belief".
If you can find a copy of New Scientist, check out the last couple pages in the back where they discuss odd product claims & product labeling that readers find & send in. They've gotten so many labels claiming products' wondrous (and frankly unbelievable) benefits come from using "quantum" methods, it's become a running joke in that column. (No, I don't know off the top of my head what the column is called & couldn't find it in a quick search of New Scientist's web site, but it's in the print edition every month.)
The section of the 10-Q report you quoted sounds similar -- they firmly believe in a lot of possible health benefits, described by a lot of big words such as "sublingual, buccal, and transdermal delivery systems for bioactive agents that can now for the first time, effectively encapsulate and charge many varying molecules in order to produce complete product formulations which can bypass the GI track and enter the blood stream directly" which looks like something that was written up in the hope the average reader would think "wow, not sure what all that means but sounds real fancy", but FUSE doesn't seem to have anything besides firm belief to support their claims.
I hear it can cure cancer and aids. If you rub it on your head it will grow hair. If needed rubbing it on the right spot will give an erection that lasts for two days. Unfortunately the side effects are worse then its positive properties causing rabid behavior such as voting for Obama and singing "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and "Muskrat Love".
THAT WAS CLASSIC ZH COMMENTING BelowZero!!! Excellent!
Bruce, very few atheletes have been known as brillinat investors. Many have "advisors" who suck, though Tiger involvement is a surprise, one wonders how desperate Tiger is now that most/all of his former sponsor's have abandoned him and he is no longer winning tournements. Next we hear, will Tiger will be working as a greeter at a casino?
When it comes to energy drinks, if you can't mix it with alcohol it's worthless.
I don't know about this new drink, but Red Bull is intriguing. It is named after the taurine in it, and it turns out that taurine has the opposite signaling functions in the body as glutamate. The processed food is doused in glutamate all the time, which has its downsides healthwise, so I think the inventors of Red Bull actually knew what they were doing. Most copies of Red Bull also have taurine in them , so you don't need to stick to the brand to get the good health effects, and better yet just take some taurine and B vitamins, and forget the energy drinks at all.
I love Red Bull. I have one for breakfast every single morning.
Dolly, I've also read that the guy who started Red Bull got the idea from energy drinks being used by cabbies and all-night vendors in Southeast Asia (maybe Thailand?). The company's founder was a business traveler who was going their regularly on business trips & having a heck of a time with jet lag, when he asked cabbies & other up-and-awake-at-godawful-hours people there what they used to stay awake and alert, they showed him the drinks they were using and he found they worked for him too. That eventually gave him the idea for Red Bull.
Meaning, he took an already existing recipe, already used by a large number of people who swore up and down that it worked, verified that it worked for him too, changed it enough he could trademark it and make it more palatable to Western consumers, and started a business.
Which to me is a far cry from the celebrity endorsements and rather dubious scientific claims that the makers of FUSE seem to be relying on.
That is interesting though about how taurine works opposite to glutamate. And yeah, taurine & B-vitamins is probably a lot cheaper than the energy drinks & a lot less sweeter too (I can't stand most energy drinks myself).
Glutamate is in a lot of processed foods, but it also shows up on its own. If you read about umami, which the Japanese consider to be a fifth human taste besides the sour/salty/sweet/bitter tastes we can pick up on the tongue alone, umami is actually a way to sense glutamate. On the upside, it's started a lot of western chefs & cooks looking into what ingredients carry umami (glutamate), so things like parmesan cheese, Worcestershire sauce (likely because of the anchovies in it), and shiitake mushrooms are high in glutamate. I've tried adding all those to various recipes myself & I can vouch that yeah, they make a huge difference in how savory recipes are (umami is usually described as a very savory meaty taste). On the middle/down side, trying to isolate and synthesize what humans were sensing with the umami taste buds led to MSG (monosodium glutamate) which is dumped in a ton of foods now & causes unpleasant reactions for some. On the down-but-attracts-wingnuts side, I got an e-mail a while back claiming that if you look, you can find tons of experimental papers showing if animals are fed glutamate, they'll keep eating until obese and therefore glutamate leads to obesity and therefore all the big food companies are adding glutamate to products to try and keep us all addicted and obese.
I went looking, and did find scientific papers that made it sound like glutamate was a very bad thing. Yet it's naturally found in a lot of foods (one interview I read was with a chef who is looking into where tomatoes store most of their glutamate), I regularly use some of these foods (such as parmesan, Worcestershire, and mushrooms) in my cooking and neither myself nor the rest of my family are blowing up to gigantic sizes nor are any of us having the headaches that some of us get from MSG -- so my guess is that there are numerous different types of glutamate which may have different effects in different dosages, yet are all called "glutamate". Sort of like most people calling nylon "nylon", but if you talk to a plastics guy, they'll be appalled & tell you there are many different types of nylon which can have very different properties.
QuietObserver, everyone is different and has different tolerances. I have problems with weight myself for more reasons than the modern diet. The obesity in my family goes back at least 4 generations and I also was starved in the womb due to a umbilical chord defect. Being starved during gestation can program people to be very good at storing weight. It's to make babies born during famines have a better chance at survival.
Anyway I first stumbled onto the fact that all the added glutamate in foods caused obesity when I had to start cooking all our food from scratch because my daughter had so many food allergies. I accidentally chose foods with lower than usual glutamate levels to cook us and I started losing weight. I initially thought that it was just the added glutamate that was the problem, but as I added more foods that were naturally high in glutamate my weight loss stopped. When I again stopped eating foods naturally high in glutamate, my weight loss started again.
I think if you and your family don't have a weight problem, then eating any natural food is probably just fine for you. For me I am loving my low glutamate life. Man the weight used to just fly on me. Now, I can eat the yummy food I make, and slowly lose weight. It is the perfect solution for me. I find that my daughters problems of food allergies, ADHD and autism and my husband's gout are all much better too, but who knows if that is from the low glutamate or just being off the processed foods. For the autism there definitely could be a glutamate link because one type of genetic autism caused by a condition called Fragile X is caused by an overactive glutamate pathway. My daughter with autism after a year and a half on a low glutamate diet has just been able to get off of her supplements, and she is still acting very much not autistic anymore.
Speaking of Red Bull...
"Taurine is named after the Latin taurus (a cognate of the Greek ??????) which means bull or ox, as it was first isolated from ox bile in 1827 by German scientists Friedrich Tiedemann and Leopold Gmelin.[1]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurine
mmmmmm so good..........ox bile!
Yeah, you won't be finding any Red Bull in Thailand, they're pissed about it, feel it was stolen.
my 92 year old mom just went through some kind of stomach virus, both ends, and as soon as she stopped i put her on rite-aid pedialyte. tonight she's eating solids
http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/now/is-there-a-folk-remedy-that-you-absolu...
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/11006025-pickle-juice-versus-c...
Pickle Juice and coconut water. Both have the same needed "electrolytes" in them and you don't have to pay for the endorsements.
WHEN THE HELL is AMERICA gonna learn that every GOD DAMN trinket, can of juice, or jock strap does NOT HAVE TO BE FUCKNG ENDORSED!!!! ANd that the ENDORSEMENT only makes the GOD DAMN trinket MORE FUCKING EXPENSIVE.
DAMN were are a nation of idiots lead by retards and advertised to by psychos!
No pickle juice or coconut water?
This is even easier--
http://rehydrate.org/solutions/homemade.htm#recipe
The "Simple Solution" - Home made Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) RecipePreparing 1 (one) Litre solution using Salt, Sugar and Water at Home
Mix an oral rehydration solution using the following recipe.
Ingredients:
Preparation Method:
Stir the mixture till the salt and sugar dissolve.
Bruce, this has the characteristics of a pump and dump imo.
D.M.S.O.
Crypto Wonder Drug
In vogue
Some people say
It cures arthritis
Maybe that's why
It keeps getting banned
It's absorbed
Directly through the skin
Mix it with lemon juice
Touch your fingertips
You'll taste the lemon
The police
Started a riot
Down at the courthouse
Again
Running amok
Spilling blood
Bashing heads
I do my part
Behind the lines
Swabbing door handles of cop cars
With D.M.S.O.
Mixed with L.S.D.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DaZacuYUDE
its a total buy
.
i got to have it
Brawndo!
It's got electrolytes
It's what plants crave.
has to be a way to deliver performance enhancing drugs with an alibi for the athlete in front of a grand jury. Hey, I was told to drink this, ya know.
I took a few classes on drug delivery systems up at UCSF. There are some techniques that can be used similar to ultrasound to push things through the skin. Then there are various accelerants, someone named DMSO. Ethyl alcohol is another if I remember correctly. My take on it is it is nothing new. Take a look here for more information: http://www.pharmainfo.net/reviews/accelerants-review
DMSO = Dimethyl Sulfoxide
One old joke was to put some of this and garlic powder in the subjects shoes, the DMSO would transport the garlic oils through the skin of the feet and the victim would reek of garlic...
I can see a lot of potential uses beyond energy drinks, particularly in the medical field. getting molecules into cells is one of the biggest limiting factors around. It sounds like if it is done correctly a diabetic , for instance, could for take insulin by putting a drop under his/her tongue instead of using a needle. I haven't looked at their particulars but I've used similar techniques to deliver DNA into cells (it was a painfully complicated process, but worked). Some simple chemicals like DMSO will also do the same thing but couldn't be used because of a strong almond taste. I once used DMSO to get colchicine into plant cells to double their chromosome number. Half way through the experiment I started to taste almonds and knew I was in trouble. I looked down to see the rip in my glove. I got nasty sick from that. Lots of novels have used DMSO to deliver poisons to their victims, now they can use power drinks.
Find out the extent of their patent coverage. For example if they have the rights to use some one elses technique for beverages and consumables it will be worth less than if they have a new technique and have chosen to take the beverage route as a way to avoid the lengthy FDA approval process. No start-up can afford the FDA tests so they would have to sell to an established pharm-mafia company.
My own experience with working half a day to get a few microliters of encapsulated DNA makes me wonder how they came up with an economical way to deliver salts in a drink. The stuff I made would cost about $4 million a gallon at the rate I produced it. I assume they've improved things to get their costs a mite below that. Otherwise only Tiger could afford it. Very interesting product, especially if they aren't limited to drinks.
DMSO wil work like that for small molecule drugs (pills), but not for proteins, even small ones such as insulin. Be very careful working with DMSO; it isn't really toxic on its own, but it can pull pesticides you might have around through your skin. That seems like a very good reason not to go that way for the general public - skin protects us from lots of bad stuff.
There are some folks working on trans-dermal for protein delivery: http://www.drugdeliverytech.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&...
But it seems that most biotech has gone with auto-inject pre-filled syringes instead.
Not relevant, but you gave me a flashback with the DMSO reference.
Many moons ago, 15 to 20 years, I was very much into the lifting scene (weights) and one of the things the more hard core people would do is to take Trenbelone acetate injection tablets made for cattle, ground them to a paste or powder, and use DMSO to carry it through the skin into the bloodstream. Worked remarkably well in the short term. I always wondered, however, what else was being carried through in the process.
The things people will do.
"they give that stuff to horses for christ sake..."
in the short term we're all dead, especially if we're do shit like that
I would say they are using the William Shatner model of getting sponsors.
@big kahuna- google Duragesic/ Actiq/ Onsolis
@Lizzy- "Pedialyte, stay thirsty my friends"
Pedialyte. Every alcoholic's secret.
Tiger is getting a combo of cash, warrant and stock options. http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/842722/000114420411062943/v240078_8k.htm
Sounds like the Sirius Satellite of Soda Pop. I recommend a little bit of the bubbly instead.
Only a matter of time before they figure out how to sneak opioids ( highly addictive example, OxyContin ) into these energy drinks at magical prices. Starts with hyper-caffeine shooters...here now but who knows where it ends...?? Big Pharma sold 254 million synthetic opioid prescriptions in '10 per Fortune mag....enough to keep every USA adult doped up" around the clock for a month". They need to figure out a new delivery system and they probably will.
Now you know why Obama got elected POTUS
I would go long on an Opiated Calming Drink that cures hangovers and turns visits with divorce lawyers into a relaxing experiences.
Beer still works for me; long hops, malt, yeast and especially water.
Ranger IPA.......way long hops
Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda ... Shatner claims he would have been a Billionaire if he had not been locked up in his Priceline stock past the "sell-by" date.These guys no doubt think they are smarter and quicker than an old man like Shatner. Nothing to see here, really.
Board of Directors and Advisors lists reek of Big Pharma. Judging by how hopped up on pills mainstream society is (and that's how they want us to be), they should make billions...
If this is a true electrolyte replacement delivered transdermally, then it has much broader application than merely the athletic arena.
My neice and nephew (4&7) usually spend at least one night a year in the emergency room getting a couple bags of IV fluids bc they have caught some intestinal bug. Same with most of my friends kids.
I have no idea how many people (kids/adults) in the US are hospitalized every year due to dehydration, but i would imagine 2 million would not be offside. Imagine if that number could be cut in half, bc they didn't require IV hydration but could get it transdermally. Or the length of their hospital stay was cut in half. Or they required a nights observation but not the cost and care of an IV but simply required a patch.
I have to look at this closer but it would seem to me that this has some merit.
If you are in the ER for dehydration, you certainly don't want a transdermal nutrient patch; while the electrolytes are important, the 'hydration' aspect (aka water) is more important.