PLT Health Solutions Expands Science Team to Drive Innovation

Enhanced focus on ingredient discovery, clinical development, and global regulatory support will allow consumer product customers to innovate faster and more effectively

MORRISTOWN, NJ – PLT Health Solutions, Inc. announced today that it has completed an upsizing and reorganization of its science team with the goal of advancing the company’s ability to support innovation at customer consumer product companies. PLT veteran Dr. Barbara Davis, PhD, RD assumes the position of Head of Clinical & Regulatory Sciences and will focus on PLT’s growing and evolving global clinical and regulatory strategy. Dr. Jeremy Appleton, ND joins the company as Director of Medical & Scientific Affairs where he will act as a primary science resource for PLT’s US customers and also actively participate in the company’s innovation strategy and marketing efforts. Jennifer Murphy, MS, in her role as Principal Scientist for the company, will continue to support clinical trial development as well as focus on new product innovation and development. All three have extensive experience in the human health & nutrition field, as well as having been involved in new product development efforts for major consumer products companies.

According to Devin Stagg, Chief Operating Officer at PLT Health Solutions, expanding the company’s science talent bench is being done in recognition of the increasing role PLT plays as an innovation partner for key customers and the importance of strong science to building compelling consumer messaging. “As our lead scientific voice for the last seven years, Barbara Davis has played a key role in PLT developing a world-class scientific capability that has helped fuel our company’s rapid growth,” he said.

According to Dr. Davis, strong clinical science – particularly as it meets the requirements of global markets – will continue to be an emphasis for PLT. “While clinical efficacy has always been at the core of our evaluation of new products, today PLT plays a far more active role in clinical development and strategy to guide the development of our solutions. We have seen that our work on best-in-class clinical trial design has enabled the success of some of our top selling ingredients,” she said.

Stagg went on to discuss the new science lineup’s ability to address innovation and new product development. “Jeremy Appleton has a singular passion for the use of natural ingredients in improving human health and happiness. His work at consumer products companies brings insight into the needs of commercial product development that will be invaluable as we work closely with our customers to help them launch exciting new products. Jen Murphy will increase her focus on new product development initiatives as PLT continues to discover and develop novel ingredient solutions for our customers. We’re extremely excited about the ability to offer such an experienced, talented group to our customers and partners,” he said.

Davis heads new Clinical & Regulatory focus
Barbara A. Davis, PhD, RD is Head of Clinical & Regulatory Sciences for PLT Health Solutions. Prior to joining PLT, she was Vice President, Science & Technology for HealthFocus^® International, a consumer insights research company. Dr. Davis has also served as Director, Innovation, Nutrition & Claims at The Dannon Company, Inc., Principal Research Scientist at Wyeth Nutrition and was on the faculty of the Human Nutrition, Foods & Exercise Department at Virginia Tech, where she developed and directed the grant-funded Molecular Nutrition Laboratory. She has expertise in incorporating nutrition into business strategy, designing clinical trials in support of claims, developing scientific substantiation dossiers for health claims in the US and EU and translating science into competitive product positioning opportunities internationally.

Appleton joins PLT as Director of Medical & Scientific Affairs
As a licensed naturopathic doctor with an extensive background in natural medicine and education, Dr. Jeremy Appleton brings relevant experience driving new product ideation and development, business development, and education for natural products and ingredients to PLT. Immediately prior to joining PLT, Appleton was Vice President of Science & Education at Klaire Labs. Previous engagements included Director of Scientific Affairs for Nature’s Way and Integrative Therapeutics (Schwabe North America). He is a graduate of Reed College, National College of Natural Medicine, and completed his residency at Bastyr University, where he was also on faculty. A supplement industry veteran, Dr. Appleton also previously served as Nutrition Department Chair at the National College of Natural Medicine in Portland, OR and is the author of numerous articles on evidence-based natural medicine.

Murphy brings extensive consumer product develop experience to innovation research
Immediately prior to joining PLT, Jen Murphy spent nearly 7 years at GNC, where she worked as a Nutrition R&D Specialist and as Manager, Research and Development. During her time at GNC, Jen successfully led their ingredient discovery program and gained valuable expertise in the evaluation of clinical trials for claims substantiation. Early in her career she worked as a Nutrition, Recipe Development and Sensory Specialist at Giant Eagle Supermarkets in the Pittsburgh area. She has a Master of Science, Nutrition Sciences from the University of Pittsburgh.

Building on the PLT360 Efficacy Platform
According to Stagg, the expansion of the PLT’s scientific capability is in line with its PLT360^™ initiative that includes Efficacy as one of its four main components. “The Efficacy pillar of PLT360 places an emphasis on delivering the most positive consumer experience in each ingredient class the company offers. Premium ingredients offered for sale by PLT Health Solutions receive scientific evaluation to ensure that they offer best-in-class efficacy. For many ingredients, PLT conducts a multi-targeted, on-going program of scientific evaluation to support customer marketing activities and develop differentiation and intellectual property. Scientific dossiers and 3rd party reviews are a part of PLT’s Efficacy efforts. An important component of PLT’s scientific support of ingredients is our ability to translate research into commercially significant value statements for consumers,” he said.