Day: April 18, 2023

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Sweegen launches Sweetensify™ Flavors, debuting sweet protein brazzein technology

Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif., April 17, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Global sweetness and flavor innovator, Sweegen announced today the launch of Sweetensify™ Flavors, its newest flavor tool for food and beverage producers, to create better-for-everyone products. Powered by Sweegen’s novel sweet protein technology that includes brazzein, thaumatin II, and other unique proteins, Sweetensify Flavors improve and modulate sweet flavor, creating a sugar-like experience, thereby pushing the boundaries of healthier product innovation.

“Sweetensify Flavors will change how product developers think about reducing or eliminating sugar in beverages and foods,” said Casey McCormick, vice president of global innovation at Sweegen. “The flavor expression enabled by Sweetensify Flavors optimizes the sensory experience and enables a more sugar-like taste. It is substantially better than any previous technology. We target taste receptors on a biochemistry level that others simply cannot.”

Sweegen’s Sweetensify Flavors debuts brazzein, the company’s highly sought-after sweet protein, as well as thaumatin II. At the time of the Sweetensify announcement, Sweegen’s thaumatin II received the Flavor Extract Manufacturer’s Association (FEMA) GRAS status.

“Our regulatory vision is to open global markets and enable brands to access unique ingredients that will support their food and beverage creativity while delivering on health and wellness,” said Hadi Omrani, senior director of technical and regulatory affairs at Sweegen.

Sweet proteins like brazzein have an affinity for different taste receptors on the tongue, especially the receptor known as T1R3, which is associated with both umami and sweetness perception. Leveraging this unique attribute, Sweetensify Flavors will enable product developers to reduce the amount of sugar they use in products while maintaining the quality of characteristic flavors and sweetness.

Thaumatin II belongs to a family of sweet-tasting proteins called thaumatins. Thaumatin II is a variant of the original thaumatin protein with a similar structure and sweetness profile. Thaumatins are known for their intense sweetness, several times greater than sucrose (table sugar). Brazzein is also several thousand times sweeter than sugar, making it a cost-effective tool for brands on a large scale. Thaumatin II is considered safe for consumption by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The entire collection of Sweetensify Flavors has a wide range of benefits across sweet and savory applications, including enhancing flavor tonalities, blocking bitterness, reducing astringency and sweet linger, eliminating unwanted aftertastes, reducing sugar use, and blocking the burn from alcohol.

“Our product development teams are finding incredible synergies between Sweetensify Flavors and Sweegen’s state-of-the-art stevia systems,” said McCormick. “Ultimately, our solutions challenge the taste and cost of artificial sweeteners currently on the market.” McCormick further states, “Our customers are excited about the cross-application utility of the flavor collection enabled by the great pH and heat stability we see for these flavors along with high solubility.”

Sweegen’s Sweetensify Flavors are available for use in countries that allow flavors approved by the FEMA GRAS protocol. The company plans to expand its global availability rapidly.

To scale brazzein and thaumatin II sustainably, Sweegen uses a proprietary precision fermentation process, a technology that produces clean and sustainable ingredients. This allows for cost-effective commercial production of highly-sought after ingredients in global sugar reduction solutions. Sweegen’s innovation and strategic partner, Conagen, developed brazzein and thaumatins I and II with its proprietary protein and peptide production platforms and announced the development of the sweet proteins in 2021.

“We are the only company that has successfully scaled brazzein,” said Luca Giannone, senior vice president of global sales at Sweegen. “The launch of Sweetensify Flavors is one more example of how Sweegen brings to market the industry’s very best ingredient platforms and tools for enabling sugar reduction for health and wellness. This is our mission and our promise to our customers.”

Within one year of Sweegen announcing its ability to commercialize brazzein, it has received great interest in its proprietary sweet protein-based solutions. It has collaborated with several large food and beverage companies on sensory reformulations and new product developments.

“We look forward to the sensory results and feedback from our customers in anticipation of brazzein joining thaumatin II’s FEMA GRAS status,” said Giannone. “Sweegen is forging a path for better health and wellness in food and beverages with stellar ingredients. We are preserving Sweegen’s ability to continue perfecting these unique solutions with patents issued or pending worldwide.”

About Sweegen

Sweegen provides sweet-taste solutions for food and beverage manufacturers around the world.

We are on a mission to reduce sugar and artificial sweeteners in the global diet. Partnering with customers, we create delicious zero-sugar products that consumers love. With the best modern sweeteners in our portfolio, such as Bestevia® Rebs B, D, E, I, M, and N, and sweet proteins brazzein and thaumatin, along with our deep knowledge of flavor modulators and texturants, Sweegen delivers market-leading solutions that customers want, and consumers prefer. Well. Into the Future.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1996. Sweegen’s actual results may differ from the estimates, assumptions, and other illustrative material contained herein, and consequently, a reader should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, illustrative information regarding Sweegen’s bottom-up assumed market potential, assumed hit rate, and the resulting revenue based on these model inputs. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results.

Industry, Market, and Other Data

In this press release, we rely on and refer to information and statistics regarding market participants in the sectors in which Sweegen competes and other data. We obtained this information and statistics from our own internal estimates and third-party sources, including reports by market research firms and company filings. We do not expressly refer to these sources. All of this information involves a number of assumptions and limitations, and the sources of such information cannot guarantee accuracy or completeness of such information. The industry in which Sweegen operates is subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk due to a variety of important factors, any of which could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the estimates made by Sweegen or third parties.

Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including, among other statements, statements regarding the future prospects for Reb M stevia leaf sweetener, brazzein, and thaumatin. These statements are based on current expectations but are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and beyond Sweegen’s control.

Relevant risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements and, therefore, should be carefully considered. Sweegen assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments.

Attachments

Ana Arakelian, Head of Public Relations and Communications
Sweegen
+1.949.709.0583
ana.arakelian@sweegen.com

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 8809463

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Ministry seeks National Security support to stop developments on waterways

The Ministry of Works and Housing is seeking support from the Ministry of National Security to guarantee the safety of Assemblies in enforcing laws against development in waterways and wetlands.

The Ministry said staff of some Assemblies, including District and Metropolitan Chief Executives, had been receiving death threats in their quest to enforce the law, with some developers deploying armed land guards to prevent assemblies from doing their work.

Addressing a news conference in Accra on Tuesday, Mr Francis Asenso-Boakye, the Minister for Works and Housing, said the Ministry had formally written to the National Security Ministry about the situation.

He cited a situation in the La Dade-Kotopon Municipal Assembly where the Kpeshie Lagoon, wetlands and its buffer reserve areas were being filled with construction materials to reclaim the land for development.

Mr Asenso-Boakye said the Ministry had learnt that the site was guarded by armed men deployed by developers, making it difficult for the Assembly to halt the illegal activities in the reserved area.

‘The MCE recounted an occasion where one of the developers threatened him and asked that he finds out how the predecessor died.

‘It will be recalled that the predecessor was allegedly killed when a vehicle ran into her while jogging on the street,’ the Minister said.

Mr Asenso-Boakye said building on watercourses which results in perennial flooding had become ‘a big development issue,’ adding that human activities were undermining efforts by the Government to address the situation in Accra.

‘To address the human-induced challenges, the Ministry has engaged with the Ministry of National Security to seek support for the Assemblies to enforce planning laws and building regulations to stop development on the Kpeshie wetlands and other water bodies across the country,’ he said.

Mr Asenso-Boakye appealed to the public to support Government’s efforts by respecting rules and regulations governing settlement planning and avoid development in waterways and drainage buffers.

He said the Ministry had made considerable progress in its efforts to mitigate flood risks and reduce the incidence of flooding in flood-prone communities through the 2018 and 2020 National Flood Control Programmes.

The Minister said from 2018 to date, the Government had committed GHc 450 million to the National Flood Control Programme.

He said under the Programme, 370 desilting projects and 84 drainage channel construction projects had been completed, while 118 were at various stages of completion.

Mr Asenso-Boakye said the Ministry was also developing Flood Early Warning System (FEWS) for the Greater Accra Region to afford people in vulnerable communities the benefit of advanced notice of flooding so they could take steps to protect their lives and valuables.

‘The Ministry will continue to engage the Ministry of Finance to raise the necessary funds to enhance the flood resilience of our communities,’ he assured.

Source: Ghana News Agency

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PAC begins zonal public hearing in Sunyani

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament, has begun its zonal public hearings in Sunyani, to consider the 2020 Auditor General’s Report on Pre-Universities in the Ahafo, Ashanti, Bono, and Bono East Regions.

A statement issued by the Public Affairs Directorate of Parliament and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday, said the five-day public hearings, would consider infractions and financial misappropriations cited in the Auditor-General’s Report (2020).

The Auditor-General’s Reports cited some Educational Institutions including Kumasi and Sunyani Technical Universities in The Ashanti and the Bono Regions for various infractions.

It said PAC would also interrogate the Report of the Auditor General on the Management and Utilisation of District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) and other statutory funds for the year ended 31st December 2020 before departing to the Southern Zone.

The PAC commenced sitting in Tamale on Tuesday, 11 April 2023 to consider the 2020 Auditor-General’s Reports on Technical Universities and Reports on the Management and Utilisation of DACF for the year ended 31 December 2020.

Source: Ghana News Agency

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Okuapeman Senior High School in desperate need of Computers

Management and students of Okuapeman Senior High School have expressed a desperate need for computers following a recent theft of computers in the school.

The incident happened when the school went on a short break during the Easter festivities.

Mr Peter Anoma-Kodie, an alumni of the school told the Ghana News Agency that thieves broke into the ICT lab of the school and made away with about ten desktop computers, four laptop computers and a sound system which was mostly used by students for their oral English.

The school has several students who are visually impaired and who do not know how to use braille, so they rely heavily on computers and laptops to do anything academic.

Mr Anoma-Kodie said the students were going to write their West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in three months and the students who were visually impaired would be the most affected if they did not get computers to write the exams.

He said the absence of computers and the sound system would also affect how the school prepared the students for the final exams.

Mr Anoma-Kodie said, ‘We would want to appeal to the public, and government through the Ministry of Education, corporate Ghana, NGOs’ and churches that this was an emergency, and we need their support as soon as possible.

‘We need as a matter of urgency about 20 desktop computers and 10 laptop computers before July so we can prepare the visually impaired students for the WASSCE exams, and we will also need a good sounds system for oral English and lectures at the center,’ he added.

Okuapeman Senior High School located in the Akuapem North Municipality has a lot of students who are visually impaired.

Source: Ghana News Agency

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Hemophilia patients in Cameroon still reluctant to seek medical attention

An estimated 2,000 persons suffer from hemophilia in Cameroon but only about 200 of them seek medical attention, a study shows.

During celebrations marking the World Hemophilia Day on Monday, April 17, the hemophilia treatment centre in Yaounde said treatment options have greatly advanced “but many are still living in pain”.

Persons with the health condition suffer from excessive bleeding as their blood does not clot normally.

Prof. Dora Mbanya, the Director General of the National Blood Transfusion Centre gave an explanation of what the condition is during the celebration of the World Hemophilia Day on April 17.

“Hemophilia ‘A’ patients are those who lack factor 8 in their systems. So if they are bleeding, you need to replace factor 8 for coagulation to take place so that bleeding can stop. If they lack factor 9, you need to replace with factor 9,” Prof. Dora said. “The clotting factor deficiency requires that you replace the clotting factor. That’s what the treatment is about.”

The health expert indicated that the treatment has evolved from blood transfusion to the manufacturing of hemophilia factors which are simply injected into the patient.

“Before we got hemophilia factors manufactured in very early years, what happened was that blood was transfused,” Prof. Dora Mbanya noted, adding that, “you would find people taking old blood from one individual and transfuse but then the quantities of clotting factors inside were too small to cause any effective treatment to take place.”

Symptoms of the health condition usually include deep bruises, joint pain and swelling, as well as unexplained bleeding and blood in urine or stool.

Source: Cameroon News Agency

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Hypertension on the increase among the youth in the Eastern Region

Dr. John E. Otoo, the Deputy Director of Public Health of the Eastern Regional Ghana Health Service has said hypertension was on the increase among the youth in the region.

‘What is interesting is that we are having young people who are in their productive years recording this condition. People in their late 30s and 40s, which is unacceptable’, he noted.

Dr. Otoo told the Ghana News Agency in an interview that hypertension in the youth meant, the heart was going to work against a raised blood pressure for a very long time which was dangerous.

‘The probability of your heart failing is very high, the probability of having a stroke is very high, probability of having kidney disease and blindness is very high because of the raised blood pressure’, he said.

Hypertension, Dr. Otoo, noted resulted from multiple factors such as hereditary, unhealthy lifestyles such as drunkenness, a sedentary lifestyle, and eating foods containing high calories.

He, however, observed that formally, hypertension, diabetes and other Non-Communicable Diseases (CDs) were only recorded in persons who were older and had grown passed their productive lives.

As a result, he indicated that the health directorate was putting in place strategies to increase NCD awareness in the region as well as increase the number of wellness clinics in all districts in the region.

The wellness clinics, Dr Otoo, said were to help detect any abnormalities in the general health condition of citizens so that they would be linked to care for management.

Again, he indicated that the public would be educated on the need to access wellness clinics since the few available in the districts were not being patronized as expected.

‘The unfortunate thing is that hypertension, for example, is among most of the chronic diseases that when they start you will not know until you start experiencing the complications’, he noted.

Dr. Otoo, therefore, advised citizens to at least visit the wellness clinics every six months to check their blood pressure, sugar level, Body Mass Index (BMI) and others for their health sake.

Again, he advised citizens to be conscious of their lifestyles because of the changing way of living, ‘Now everything is at hands reach easy to access. We need to exercise more and eat healthily’.

Non-Communicable Diseases refer to a group of health conditions not mainly caused by acute infections, however, result in long-term health consequences and often create a need for long-term treatment and care.

Source: Ghana News Agency

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FG to establish National Council of Special Duties, Inter-governmental Affairs – Minister

The Federal Government says that plans are underway to establish a ‘National Council of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs’ for sustainable national development.

Sen. George Akume, the Minister, Ministry of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs, said this at a three-day stakeholders’ conference on Special Duties and Inter-governmental Affairs in Abuja on Tuesday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the conference is “Harnessing grassroots potentials for service delivery and for sustainable national development: The proper place of Local Government Administration and Inter- Governmental Relations”.

Akume said that the national council if established would be the highest policy advisory body to the nation on issues of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs.

According to him, the absence of a critical structure or vehicle of mobilisation of stakeholders for prompt action has hindered the pace of the Ministry in discharging its activities.

“This realisation has thus informed my decision to establish the National Council of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs.

“The proposed council in its form, structure and function would resemble national councils of other ministries.

“It is also pertinent to state that the need for this council was mentioned as far back as 2008, during the bi-annual conference of key functionaries of local government administration in Kaduna State,” Akume said.

He said the gathering was to enrich the process that would eventually lead to the formal establishment of the national council.

Akume urged the participants to utilise their experiences, backgrounds and professions during the deliberations to ensure a convergence of ideas and the eventual seamless take – off of the council.

Earlier, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Ibiene Roberts, while thanking the participants, expressed hope that the discussions would help birth a successful national council.

“As seasoned administration that we are, our key responsibility is to ensure that government institutions work optimally in service delivery in an efficient and effective manner.

“I recognise you as the pillars and as such, integral part of the ministry. It is the resolve of the ministry to work with you to enable us achieve our deserving citizenry,” Roberts said.

On his part, Sen. Yusuf Yusuf, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Special Duties, said that there was need for proper sensitisation on the local government potentials at the grassroots.

Yusuf said that there were lots of potentials at the local government areas, saying that harnessing the potentials would enhance national development.

“The potentials must be unlocked through proper sensitisation; government has to create proper avenue, and mobilisation of the grassroots is the key for national development,” he added.

Similarly, Sen. Abba Moro, the Chairman of the Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs, said the local government administration was the foundation of government worldwide.

Moro, while commending the ministry for the initiative, pledged to support the ministry in its activities, saying that local government autonomy was the bedrock for national development.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

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Matriculation: Elevate Nigeria to greatness, NOUN VC tells new students

The Vice-Chancellor, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Prof. Olufemi Peters, has enjoined the new students of the institution to strive to elevate Nigeria to its deserved place of greatness in Africa and the world.

Peters said this on Tuesday, at the 24th matriculation of the university, which took place virtually across its various study centres nationwide.

“As you pass through our university, I am hopeful that you will acquire the appropriate knowledge and skills, as well as the requisite strength of character and tenacity, to sail through the challenges of global competition,” he said.

Peters said knowledge and skills were the weapons needed to make positive mark to elevate the country to its deserved place of greatness in Africa and the world.

The vice-chancellor also urged the new students to utilise the opportunities offered by the flexibility and openness of their study in NOUN to excel more than their peers elsewhere.

“For those that are engaged in a vocation and or employment, it is an opportunity to excel in your career.

“It is also an opportunity to demonstrate the efficacy of continuous education through open and distance learning, in adding value to your competence at work, to the delight of employers,” Peters said.

The new entrants, comprising of 12, 954 undergraduates, 4, 716 postgraduates and four Ph.D students in various faculties, would join an already existing population of over 150,000 students studying for various degrees in the university.

“The uniqueness of the university should evoke special interests in the students especially from people who are eager to know how qualitative academic training is in the university.

“I enjoin you, therefore, to be dedicated to your studies and be good ambassadors of this university,” he said.

Speaking on the marked attributes of NOUN, Peters said the university’s mode of teaching and service delivery cannot be restricted by the barriers of distance, location, or the bias of race and creed.

He said: “I am particularly glad to inform you that your university is privileged to operate in sync with the emerging world order of a global village in the information age.

“NOUN takes the ‘Gown to the Town’ dictum by providing equal access to quality education for all citizens, irrespective of their social circumstances, their creed, and wherever they are located.”

He advised the new entrants to form peer groups where common issues relating to their study can be shared and discussed.

Peters added that the university had provided an e-ticketing feedback system to resolve complaints encountered during the course of their studies.

He also said that other delivery applications, including the simplified assessment processes (tutorials, tests and examinations) would make study at NOUN a most rewarding educational experience for the students.

The Registrar of the university, Mr Oladipo Ajayi, administered the matriculation oath on the students via the Zoom platform.

Ajayi urged them to abide by all the rules and regulations of the university in order to avoid expulsion.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria