November 23, 2004 — The NSE convention in Japan, held November 17th through the 20th, was a huge success by all accounts. It saw the official launch of the Pharmanex® BioPhotonic Scanner in Japan, which is the largest NSE market. The Scanner was presented at workshops and during the general session to considerable enthusiasm. It was announced that at least 100 Scanners will be released to top Japan leaders the week following the convention.

"It was gratifying to see that the Scanner was so well received at this convention," said Pharmanex President, Joseph Chang, Ph.D., who was present at the event. "We believe that the Pharmanex business will benefit greatly from the availability of the Scanner in Japan, just as the U.S. business grew substantially when the Scanner was launched there."

The Pharmanex® BioPhotonic Scanner is backed by solid science.
The use of Raman spectroscopy for biological measurements is an established scientific discipline backed by years of research. The Pharmanex® BioPhotonic Scanner is a patented application of Raman spectroscopy for the measurement of carotenoid antioxidant nutrients in living tissue.

The use of biophotonics to assess biological molecules in living tissue is a distinct scientific discipline, and the Pharmanex® BioPhotonic Scanner is an instrument that is based on this scientific discipline. The use of Raman spectroscopy for the assessment of human tissue carotenoids has been validated by at least eight peer-reviewed studies conducted by third party entities unrelated to Pharmanex or the supplementation industry. (Bernstein, 1998, 2002; Ermakov, 2004a, 2004b; Gellermann, 2004, 2002; Hata, 2000; Zhao, 2003). Raman spectroscopy is an established and accepted detection method; a Medline search for the term raman spectroscopy yields over 4,400 articles.

Pharmanex is not the only entity impressed with the nutritional implications of Raman spectroscopy. In 2003 the National Cancer Institute (a division of the National Institutes of Health) awarded researchers at Yale University a $1 million grant to conduct a study using Raman detection of carotenoids as an objective measure of fruit and vegetable intake. Most large-scale nutritional studies rely on diet recall surveys, which are subject to errors of reporting fruit and vegetable consumption. The study will be completed in 2006 (Mayne et al, 2003; YCC News Release, 2003).

The Pharmanex® BioPhotonic Scanner is consistently well received by experts in all areas of science. Pharmanex Scientists have presented the science behind LifePak® and the BioPhotonic Scanner at a number of scientific meetings. Dr. Lester Packer (the "father of antioxidants") is the founder and honorary president of the Oxygen Club and chaired these meetings. Dr. Carsten Smidt presented a scanner study at the Santa Barbara meeting. In April 2003 and 2004, Dr. Carsten Smidt attended the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) meetings in San Diego and Washington DC, and presented the results of two different scanner studies. The FASEB meeting is attended by more than 10,000 scientists from around the world, but only a small percentage are selected to present. In January of 2004, Dr. Carsten Smidt attended and presented the scanner/serum correlation study at the prestigious Gordon Research Conference on Carotenoids in Ventura, California. Dr. Smidt also scanned 60 of the top antioxidant researchers in the world at this conference.

In all instances, the Pharmanex® BioPhotonic Scanner has been very well received by the scientific community.

To learn more about the Pharmanex® BioPhotonic Scanner, visit www.pharmanexscanner.com.