Judge Rules on Tiratricol-Sounding Diet Product

Judge Rules on Tiratricol-Sounding Diet Product

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo.--A federal judge has ruled that because tiratricol has been under investigation as a new drug application since 1990, the substance cannot be marketed as a dietary supplement by Syntrax Innovations either as a product or a similarly named product. In 1999, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) filed a civil forfeiture against Syntrax for selling Triax Metabolic Accelerator, a diet product that containedtiratricol.
However, this did not stop the company from selling a product known as Triax II, which Syntrax argued does not containtiratricol. In his Feb. 14, 2001, memorandum opinion, Judge Rodney Sippel stated that Syntrax marketed Triax II in order to have an association with Triax by implying it also containedtiratricol.
"Per the court ruling, Triax II had to be discontinued," said Joey Rodrigues, national sales and marketing manager atSyntrax. He added that FDA did not have a problem with the active ingredient in Triax II, which is coleusforskoli. In order to sell the product, the company renamed the product
Triple X. To learn more about this case, visit www.fda.gov.