To assist with further research and development of flavouring for Beyond Tobacco™ as well as an intellectual property strategy, the Company has appointed Dr. Cindy Orser to its advisory board. Dr. Orser, who was once a tenured professor at the University of Idaho, holds more than 20 patents and has 65 peer-reviewed publications with over 2,000 citations. In her career in industry, Dr. Orser has held executive scientist roles at biotechnology and analytical diagnostic companies that have been contractors for federal agencies in the United States including the United States Department of Agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security, and three institutes of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Orser is currently the Chief Science officer of a life sciences firm in the United States, and Principal of a scientific, technical, regulatory and strategic affairs consultancy.
LAS VEGAS and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — TAAT LIFESTYLE & WELLNESS LTD. (CSE: TAAT) (OTCQB: TOBAF) (FRANKFURT: 2TP2) (the “Company” or “Taat”) is pleased to announce that it has added Dr. Cindy Orser, a highly accomplished and renowned scientist, entrepreneur, and academic with more than 20 patents1 and 65 peer-reviewed publications cited over 2,000 times2, to its board of advisors. Dr. Orser’s impressive scope of professional experience consists of founding and co-founding science firms that have performed work for federal agencies in the United States in addition to positions to include Director of Biodefense at an advanced signal processing firm for defense and intelligence agencies, and tenured professor of Biochemistry and Bacteriology at the University of Idaho. Dr. Orser joins longtime global “Big Tobacco” player Michael Saxon and 2017 Dean of the Industry for convenience channel wholesale Kit Dietz as part of Taat’s advisory board. At the time of this press release, the Company continues with commercial-scale production of Taat before launching in Ohio later this month.
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7914be92-a82f-448a-8cac-c81521a449ec
Taat has developed Beyond Tobacco™, the tobacco-free and nicotine-free base material of Taat, an alternative to traditional cigarettes which is offered in Original, Smooth, and Menthol varieties. With 1.3 billion tobacco users worldwide3, the Company’s objective is to offer current tobacco smokers of legal age the choice to leave nicotine behind while keeping the experiences they enjoy. The Beyond Tobacco™ base material has a taste and smell similar to actual tobacco, which is achieved by way of a patent-pending refinement technique. Under executive management from the tobacco industry, the Company has procured commercial-scale manufacturing for Taat at favourable pricing with a contract manufacturer for national and global tobacco brands. As of this writing, a substantial supply of Taat cartons intended for sale at retail is slated to arrive at tobacco distributors’ warehouses in Ohio by November 27, 2020, at which point Taat is to be officially launched in the United States.
The Company has appointed Dr. Cindy Orser to its board of advisors to provide guidance regarding the development of Beyond Tobacco™ from both a scientific and regulatory perspective. Dr. Orser, who has extensive experience in both academics and industry, has consistently taken a “hands-on” approach to scientific projects, with her involvement often including funding coordination, hiring and mentoring personnel, identifying and forming partnerships with collaborators, and acquiring samples. In her doctoral work at the University of California at Berkeley, Dr. Orser discovered the molecular basis of bacterial ice nucleation to be a single genic trait responsible for widespread frost injury on agronomic crops.
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f2667366-903a-4b03-830b-e7f95499fb2e
In a five-year tenure at the defense contracting firm Areté Associates, Dr. Orser was a Corporate Senior Scientist and Head of the Biodefense/Biotechnology Initiative, where she invented an assay to measure protein misfolding, which she spun out in a standalone firm for blood diagnostics. Subsequently, Dr. Orser co-founded ASDx Biosystems, a Boulder, CO biotechnology firm that developed and validated rapid diagnostic tests for United States Homeland Security in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to identify biothreat agents. From June 2014 through March 2020, Dr. Orser was Chief Science Officer and Laboratory Director of Digipath Labs, where she created a state-of-the-art testing facility in Las Vegas, NV, for plant materials similar to those used for the Beyond Tobacco™ base material of Taat. At this time, Dr. Orser is the Chief Science Officer for CLIP Labs, a horticultural testing laboratory in the United States, in addition to being Principal of Big Sky Biosystems Inc., a scientific, technical, regulatory and strategic affairs consultancy.
Research proposed and led by Dr. Orser has received 40 grant and contract awards, which have each been valued at as much as USD $3 million including funding from agencies of the United States federal government such as:
- United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
- United States Air Force, Office of the Surgeon General (USAF OSG)
- Office of the Secretary of Defense (part of the Department of Defense)
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI, an institute of the NIH)
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK, an institute of the NIH)
- National Cancer Institute (NCI, an institute of the NIH)
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
- Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- National Science Foundation (NSF)
- United States Department of Energy (DOE)
- United States Geological Survey (USGS)
Additionally, Dr. Orser has received research funding from international bodies to include the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA, United Kingdom) and Alliance Biosecure Foundation (France).
As an advisor to the Company, Dr. Orser is to guide Taat in initiatives to advance flavouring techniques for Beyond Tobacco™, in addition to forming an intellectual property strategy. In a recent video statement provided below, Dr. Orser described her enthusiasm about Taat and its potential as a novel alternative to tobacco cigarettes.
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/409cd8e3-e41b-4267-9199-bb1e158fe296
Click here to watch the video
“There is substantial untapped potential with a product such as Taat and its Beyond Tobacco™ base material, and I look forward to working with the Company towards maximizing that potential”, said Dr. Cindy Orser, following her induction to the Company’s advisory board. “In the course of the work that I have done in this space, I am yet to see an approach quite like the one Taat has taken to creating a plant-based and nicotine-free alternative to tobacco which could be appealing to current smokers based on flavour similarity. As close as the Beyond Tobacco™ base material may currently be to smelling and tasting like tobacco, I believe I can help to make it even more similar through the strategic use of flavouring. Moreover, I will help the Company to optimize its research and development workflows for greater efficiency in future projects that may enter their pipeline following the launch of Taat.”
Taat Chief Executive Officer Setti Coscarella commented, “We’re at an exciting point in our timeline in which our best iteration of Beyond Tobacco™ to date is in production and ready to be used for the manufacture of Taat for our launch in a few weeks. Although the product is ‘ready’, it is by no means ‘done’. An important part of our launch in Ohio, as well as in the next markets to which we plan to expand, will be taking user feedback into account to make any needed adjustments to the Beyond Tobacco™ formulation. Under the scientific guidance of Dr. Cindy Orser, our in-house research and development can be brought to its utmost potential, which I believe can make Beyond Tobacco™ and Taat even more competitive in the tobacco industry.”
Sources:
1 – https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Cindy+Orser&num=100
2 – https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cindy_Orser
3 – https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco
4 – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC214252/pdf/jbacter00215-0369.pdf
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Company,
TAAT LIFESTYLE & WELLNESS LTD.
“Setti Coscarella”
Setti Coscarella, CEO
For further information, please contact:
Taat Investor Relations
1-833-TAAT-USA (1-833-822-8872)
[email protected]
THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE (CSE) HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE.
About Taat Lifestyle & Wellness Ltd.
The Company has developed Taat, which is a tobacco-free and nicotine-free alternative to traditional cigarettes offered in “Original”, “Smooth”, and “Menthol” varieties. Taat’s base material is Beyond Tobacco™, a proprietary blend which undergoes a patent-pending refinement technique causing its scent and taste to resemble tobacco. Under executive leadership with “Big Tobacco” pedigree, Taat is launching in the United States in Q4 2020 as the Company seeks to position itself in the $814 billion1 global tobacco industry.
For more information, please visit http://taatusa.com.
References
1 British American Tobacco – The Global Market
Forward Looking Statements
This news release contains “forward-looking information” within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Often, but not always, forward-looking information and information can be identified by the use of words such as “plans”, “expects” or “does not expect”, “is expected”, “estimates”, “intends”, “anticipates” or “does not anticipate”, or “believes”, or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results “may”, “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken, occur, or be achieved. Forward-looking information in this news release includes statements regarding the potential launch of Beyond Tobacco™, in addition to the following: Potential outcomes from the appointment of Dr. Cindy Orser to the Company’s advisory board. The forward-looking information reflects management’s current expectations based on information currently available and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed timeframes or at all. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include: (i) adverse market conditions; (ii) changes to the growth and size of the tobacco markets; and (iii) other factors beyond the control of the Company. The Company operates in a rapidly evolving environment. New risk factors emerge from time to time, and it is impossible for the Company’s management to predict all risk factors, nor can the Company assess the impact of all factors on Company’s business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ from those contained in any forward-looking information. The forward-looking information included in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.
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