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MonaVie announced the appointment of Devin D. Thorpe as their new Chief Financial Officer. Founded in 2005, Mona Vie is a global leader in the production and sale of the Brazilian Acai Berry nutritional drink.

Thorpe’s background both in the direct sales industry and in the financial sector is impressive. Prior to joining the Mona Vie team, Thorpe served as treasurer of another direct sales company, worked on staff at the U.S. Senate Banking Committee in Washington D.C, acted as managing director of Thorpe Capital Group, an investment bank he founded in 2000 and most recently he led the Technology Outreach and Innovation program at USTAR. Thorpe’s background in the financial sector as well as in the direct selling industry

Thorpe is excited about the opportunity that awaits him at Mona Vie and is anxious to help the country continue to build and grow. “It is a thrill to join one of the most outstanding companies in the entire world. The challenge for a CFO in this environment is to find ways to continue to increase stability and security while accelerating growth worldwide. I’m honored to join the MonaVie team and look forward to being a part of this company’s magnificent future.”

“We are delighted to add such a strong global finance executive to our team,” says MonaVie Founder and President Dallin Larsen. “Devin Thorpe’s experience in both the financial and banking industries will be invaluable in building upon our strong momentum worldwide.”

Thorpe holds a B.S. degree in Finance from the University of Utah and an MBA from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management.

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In a very bizarre twist, Imagenetix, Inc. has announced that they will enter into a partnership with MonaVie. That’s right, Imagentix, is the SAME nutritional company that only a few weeks ago sued MonaVie for over $2 BILLION dollars. Apparently, the two companies have worked out their differences.

The original suit was brought by Imagenetix barely a month ago for patent infringement. Imagentix claimed that MonaVie, a rival neutraceutical company was making claims that their products contained the Celadrin formula patented by Imagenetix. Celadrin is a cellular lubricant that aids in joint health. Celadrin has been shown to be extremely effective aiding in joint health with results of over 15 University and Scientific studies being published in journals worldwide. Imagenetix developed the formula and holds the exclusive patent for its use. Apparently, MonaVie was either using the formula without permission, or they made false claims that they were using it.

The new agreement gives MonaVie the right to use the Celadrin in some products. Both companies released official statements about their excitement at entering into this new agreement.

‘We are extremely excited about the future of MonaVie as it relates to our relationship with
Imagenetix,’ said Dallin Larsen, of MonaVie. ‘Celadrin is a reputable and proven product that fits well with MonaVie’s mission to provide our consumers with products that promote healthy, active lifestyles.’

‘Imagenetix has the utmost confidence in MonaVie and its executive team, and are proud to be their associates,’ said Bill Spencer, of Imagenetix. ‘Considering what both companies bring to the table in terms of product quality and industry experience, this business partnership just makes sense. Based on this relationship we expect MonaVie to become one of our largest customers.’

In just a month these two companies went from a bitter $2.75 billion dollar lawsuit to a friendly partnership and business relationship. Makes you wonder what is going on behind the scenes. We will say this, Dallin Larsen has a lot of credibility now. He did say it was going to be settled. While it may not have been “a coupe of days”, he did stand by his word. Dallin gets a lot of respect here.

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It seems that the $2.5 billion dollar lawsuit brought against MonaVie by Imagenetix has been dropped.
According to sources form MonaVie, the two companies have reached and agreement on the trademark infringement issue and Imagenetix has agreed to dismiss the suit. MonaVie put out a press release late yesterday afternoon announcing the development.

The case brought to a California court by Imagenetix claimed that MonaVie made false claims that their products contained Celadrin, a nutritional formula patented and sold in retail stores solely by Imagenetix.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with Imagenetix and to move forward focusing on our great products,” said Dallin Larsen, MonaVie founder and president. “As has always been the case, MonaVie is committed to conducting business with the utmost regard for integrity and moral principles.”

No word on what the actual agreement is and surprisingly, no word from Imagentix either. With this suit hopefully behind them, MonaVie can now focus its attention towards its expansion into South America during the summer of 2008.

Imagenetix apparently claimed to have a pretty powerful case against MonaVie and was adamant about making them pay for their alleged “scheme and conspiracy,” but it now it seems all is well. Details of the reason for the dismissal of the lawsuit are a bit vague and while it seems nothing official has been released by Imagenetix, we will take MonaVie’s word for it and continue to update you if there are any new developments.

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So with all juicy stories, they either have boring endings or ones that make ya really think if they are truly over. Such is the case with the Imagenetix claim against MonaVie which we revealed.

It seems now that Dallin Larsen, the Founder and President of MonaVie has sent out a letter to his “Diamonds and Above” assuring them that the issue will go away in “the next few days”.

Dear Diamonds and Above,

A few days ago in San Diego, California, a company by the name of Imagenetix filed a lawsuit against MonaVie and named many of our top distributors in the suit. This was in breach of an agreement we had reached with Imagenetix earlier in the week. We expect this issue to go away over the next few days.

To give you some perspective and to calm any concerns you may have, when MonaVie first launched in 2005, we included in our product a trademark ingredient called Celadrin®. Because we weren’€™t able to reach terms of use back in 2005, we stopped using this ingredient. However, Imagenetix has claimed that some of our distributors continued to refer to Celadrin® as an ingredient found in MonaVie Active and as such, Imagenetix believes that MonaVie has violated their intellectual property rights in the ridiculous amount of $2.5 billion!!!

As a show of good faith, we’€™ve reached an agreement to once again include Celadrin® in MonaVie Active. However, we are also very disappointed that Imagenetix chose to breach our agreement through the filing of their lawsuit. We’€™ve obviously been in contact with them and their attorney called us as early as yesterday apologizing for the filing of the lawsuit, stating that he was uninformed that MonaVie and Imagenetix had already reached an agreement. He was obviously embarrassed and we were less than amused.

Imagenetix has assured us that they will retract the filing and make a statement of such over the next few days and we fully expect them to keep their word. If for whatever reason, they remain in breach of our agreement, rest assured that MonaVie is well prepared as always, to protect the interests of all our distributors. Feel free to share this information with anyone in your respective groups who may have inquired as we’€™ve fielded approximately a dozen calls over the last few days at the company. However, I would caution you not to overly concern anyone by spreading discussion on this topic, as again, we fully expect it to go away over the next few days.

I guess this means we’€™re no longer under the radar! Keep up the good work!!! And let this serve as a reminder, MonaVie DOES NOT contain Viagra!

Dallin

I have to say, while we openly admit to enjoying the MonaVie product, this letter is a bit odd and it doesnt appear that Dallin got any help from a good crisis management firm to help him with it.

How does Dallin say that they stopped using Celadrin yet it’s right on his corp website as one of the Top Ten reasons that MonaVie is great! Either no one told Larsen what’s in his product or there is going to be a new job opening for a webmaster over there pretty soon. And I must say, having run a company in the past, been on boards of public companies, if MonaVie had indeed reached any agreement with Imagenetix, it would be a bit shocking that they would move forward with a very public announcement of a lawsuit against the company they allegedly just made an agreement with.

I’m not quite sure how Larsen expects this to “go away in the news few days” especially after this letter went out. I am equally confused as to Larsen really can convince people that he expects Imagenetix to “keep their word” about putting out a retraction article when according to Larsen himself, Imagenetix didn’t keep their word to begin with and that is why the lawsuit was announced so publicly.

Stay tuned, this one is far from over!

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