VIAGRA NEWS

Source: MiamiHerald.com

Date: 6-Oct-2008

Author: DAVID GELLES

On a recent night at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, 200 muscular men crammed into a bar to watch a live broadcast of mixed martial arts bouts. Cheers erupted as the fighters on the screen pinned each other to the mat and drew blood.

The party was hosted by Bio-Engineered Supplements & Nutrition, a Boca Raton company that has emerged as one of the leading manufacturers of sports supplements, with $124 million in sales last year. The company makes its profits by selling weight-loss and energy-boosting products with names like Endorush and Astro-Phex at retailers such as GNC and Vitamin World.

This summer, BSN became the official supplement sponsor of Ultimate Fighting Championship, the Las Vegas-based mixed martial arts promoter.

BSN founder and Chief Executive Chris Ferguson said it's not only his products that distinguish BSN. "What really elevated this business is the art of marketing," said Ferguson, 34.

By associating his company with UFC -- which draws three million male viewers ages 18 to 49 to a fight -- Ferguson hopes BSN supplements will become indispensable to a large swath of the coveted young male demographic.

"We want to be the Gatorade of the UFC," said Ferguson.

The fight promoter is equally enthusiastic about BSN. UFC president Dana White said he is a personal fan of the supplements. "It's great to get a sponsor and great to get paid," said White. "But I used their products before we even did a deal."

BSN paid roughly $10 million for a three-year sponsorship with UFC. For this, BSN gets its logo inside the distinctive octagonal fight ring and joins some illustrious company. Bud Light and Harley Davidson are other prominent UFC sponsors.

Despite any stigma that may surround ultimate fighting, Ferguson believes mixed martial arts is here to stay. Indeed, this summer CBS broadcast mixed martial arts bouts in a prime-time Saturday night slot. "In 10 years this will be the biggest sport in the world," Ferguson predicted.

BSN's sponsorship of UFC comes just as the company hits its stride. BSN expects sales of $200 million this year, a 61 percent year-over-year leap and a long way from 2004 sales of just $9 million.

The company's trajectory mirrors similarly explosive growth in the larger sports supplements market, which recorded $2.5 billion sales last year, according to Nutrition Business Journal.

"BSN is one of the most popular products in the sports nutrition category," said Marvin Barton, sports nutrition category manager for the Vitamin Shoppe. "They've introduced some category-creating products."

But in this largely self-regulated industry, safety concerns persist. "The first problem with supplements is that they are not FDA-controlled," said Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein, medical director for the Florida Poison Information Center of Miami and an expert in clinical pharmacology. "The quality control is not there."

Unlike pharmaceutical drugs, nutritional supplements do not have to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Instead, supplement makers agree to only use ingredients already being used in other dietary supplements.

This leaves the door open for potentially unsafe concoctions, Bernstein said. "There is very little science," he said. "A lot of it is based on theory."

In the case of BSN, Ferguson himself comes up with the formulas for supplements. "I'm CEO/chief product formulator," he said. "Jack of all trades, master of none."

Ferguson, who has a B.S. from Florida Atlantic University but no advanced degree, said that he has been reading about nutrition since he was 12, and is qualified to design products. "It's my forte," he said.

After coming up with a new combination and doing lab tests, BSN tests its products on members of local gyms. The studies include 12 to 20 subjects and run for 12 weeks. BSN makes sure there are no adverse effects, then moves a new formula to market.

The Vitamin Shoppe's Barton said it was not unusual for the founders of supplement companies to also be the chief formulators. "A lot of them are not doctors or pharmacists," he said.

WHOLE BODY VIAGRA

BSN got started in 2001 when Ferguson and his longtime friend Scott James decided they could make supplements better than the ones they were using.

The pair had met at the World Gym in Boynton Beach and worked out together for years. "We were wannabe body builders," Ferguson said.

In 2000 they took over a local vitamin store. But simply peddling proteins wasn't enough. They wanted to design and market them. The next year, they founded BSN.

From a rented office, Ferguson concocted the company's first product, a weight-loss formula called Thermonex. By combining caffeine, ephedra, tyrosine derivatives, alpha lipoic acid and diuretics, Ferguson created a powerful supplement that still sells well today.

Sales were just $16,000 that first year. But the next year sales jumped to $2 million, fueled by James' aggressive marketing.

BSN turned a corner in 2003, when it debuted Nitrix, a lean-muscle builder. Just like Viagra, Nitrix uses nitric oxide to dilate blood vessels. "But instead of just targeting a specific area, we targeted the whole body," Ferguson said.

The result is bulging veins and muscles. "You start to notice pumps and fullness in your entire body," he said. "Those are the things that athletes and people who work out like to see."

Other BSN products, including the pre-workout supplement N.O.-Xplode, also activate nitric oxide to increase blood flow. N.O.-Xplore is BSN's most popular product and, said Ferguson, the best-selling sports supplement in the world.

Barton said N.O.-Xplode created the pre-workout category of supplements, and that BSN's Cellmass, which contains creatine, was influential in popularizing the post-workout category.

In 2006, BSN bought the six-story building it occupies in a Boca Raton office park for $23 million. Today the company employs 150 and operates a 400,000 square foot distribution facility in Tennessee. Ferguson and James are 50-50 owners of the company; there are no outside investors. BSN has never had an unprofitable year.

CLEAN RECORD

Nationally, there have been no reports of harmful side effects from BSN products. Though supplements are not regulated by the FDA, the agency began keeping tabs on serious adverse events related to dietary supplements in 2007, after Congress passed the Dietary Supplement and Nonprescription Drug Consumer Protection Act.

"Most of the supplements out there are probably not harmful," said Bernstein. "They probably do the most harm in your wallet."

But Bernstein said users should consult with their doctors and exercise caution before taking supplements, a message echoed by warning labels on the products of BSN and its competitors, such as Gaspari and VPX.

"When you take all of these supplements together, that's a huge expense without any real evidence that it's going to help you," said Bernstein. "It's like voodoo."

And while the science may at times be lacking, many say that supplements can have a meaningful impact.

"Sports nutrition supplements have an important place for the average consumer," said Dr. Andrew Shao, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, an industry group for supplement makers. "These things do have a place in enhancing performance."

White, the UFC president, said his athletes take BSN products to gain an edge. "These are the best-conditioned athletes in the world," he said. "When you work as hard as these guys do, you have to take supplements."

But Shao cautioned that supplements alone will not give someone an incredible body. "For athletic performance, the most important thing you need is to get your diet and exercise regimen down," said Shao. "Portraying the supplements as a magic bullet is misleading."

At the Hard Rock bar, BSN employees passed out free samples of Endorush, the company's energy drink. In the VIP booth nearby, UFC interim heavyweight champion Antnio "Minotauro" Nogueira posed for pictures with awestruck fans.

Nogueira, a hulking Brazilian jujitsu master, said that with most fighters in similar shape, he looks for any edge he can get. "The thing you can do extra is take supplements," Nogueira said. "I feel like I've got to take it."