« Hops and liver health: an innovation against NAFLD »
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease continues to gain ground, affecting a growing proportion of the population of all ages. This disorder not only has a negative impact on the quality of life of those concerned, but also has a major economic impact.
Ortis laboratories, the academic partners in the consortium and industrial partner Yakima Chief have been concerned about this disorder for some time, convinced that hops and hop-derived products could prove invaluable in its treatment. It is therefore a shared motivation that is at the origin of this collaboration, which aims to strengthen scientific knowledge of the properties of the plant ingredients proposed by the industrialists and studied, characterized and optimized throughout this project, in order to bring together the most promising of them in a galenic form best suited to this new formulation.
Through an exploratory study in humans, we will demonstrate their value in preventing NAFLD from progressing to the irreversible and extremely incapacitating stages. This formulation will enable the development of a new dietary supplement marketed under the Ortis brand.
The industrial partners will see their product portfolios grow, offering Ortis a great opportunity to consolidate its brand image through its hepatic sphere range, while Yakima Chief and Bel go Bio will be able to approach this new food supplements sector and reach new customers in food retailing for the latter.
This project, which aims to generate growth levers and create and sustain jobs in Wallonia, is also contributing to the international reputation of the Walloon universities UCL and UNamur, via the valorization of the project’s results in the form of publications providing mechanistic aspects of the effects observed, aiming at a higher level than the data currently available in the scientific literature, as well as patents.
