And the Oscar goes to... miVital micelles: Entrepreneur from the SGBA wins important international pharma award
18.07.2019

And the Oscar goes to... miVital micelles: Entrepreneur from the SGBA wins important international pharma award

Did you know what micelles are? In the St.GallenBodenseeArea (SGBA) we’re not only familiar with the fact that a micelle is a bit like a soap bubble structure at molecular level, a spherical hull made from a substance able to encase others. In the SGBA – more precisely: in the startup incubator Startfeld – we can also proudly claim an inventor and researcher who has revolutionized micellisation technology. For which he has been awarded the so-called Oscar of the pharmaceutical industry.

The man is called Daniel Strasser. Already last fall, mostly outside mainstream media coverage, he won the „CPhI World Excellence Formulation Award“ at the „Convention of Pharmaceutical Ingredients“ (CPhI) in Madrid, Spain. For their invention in the field of micelles technology, Strasser and his company miVital AG were honored with one of the most highly regarded prizes in the entire pharmaceutical industry.

Without going too much into the technical details, the reason for this lies in the complex ways in which micelles work. Like molecular wrapping, micelles are able to enclose liposoluble and hydrophobic substances inside their water-soluble outer layer. This establishes them as a preferred vehicle in pharmaceutics to transport drugs, vitamins or nutrients to the place in our bodies where they are required. Up to today, there was one problem, though: producing micelles naturally in our body takes time. And artificial micelles were not always available in the right dimensions or able to administer the correct dosage. Which means that they were frequently too big or unstable to release its pharmaceutical cargo in the right quantities and at the correct place in our body.

Daniel Strasser’s and miVital’s micelle technology aims at changing that. The natural, plant-based micelles he developed are smaller and able to transport active ingredients through tissue and cells more easily while depositing the agents in a more targeted way. Manufacturers of valuable pharmaceutical ingredients were impressed by the increased bioavailability as miVital’s micelles promise to reduce nutrient waste and improve the pharmacokinetics of substances. And this insight earned Strasser and miVital the well-deserved win of the CPhI Award.

Meanwhile, Strasser’s micelle technology is IP copy-protected internationally by no less than four patents. Because in the SGBA and in Switzerland, a country with one of the highest per-capita patent application rates and some of the most sophisticated Intellectual Property laws, copyright and intellectual property are not just respected and protected. They are also an important precondition for innovation and entrepreneurship in the SGBA. Just like the micelle project by Daniel Strasser, who so far in his successful career has filed no less than 200 patents, 36 of them worldwide.

You can find more information about miVital’s micelle technology here: https://mivital.ch/en/index.html