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While the summer has been settling down a bit since the Weekenders carnage, there still seem to be some hot topics that just seem to re-shape themselves. USANA started off the summer with a push by its Chairman and then CEO, Dr. Myron Wentz and his holdings Co, Gull Holdings, to the company private. After two and half attempts a “low-ball bids”, Wentz and Co appeared to put their tail between their legs and move on. Not so fast. As we reported this week, USANA’s stock (USNA) had a truly amazing run up 38% giving Wentz and Co a $160m gain on paper. The strategy of low-balling an offer only to have an independent counsel say it was way too low was brilliant. It also helped that USANA settled its difference with Barry Minkow who seems to have agreed to just disappear and leave USANA alone - although terms of the “settlement” were never released.

We had the chance to sit down with legendary network marketer, Dwayne Dyer of XanGo. His story of success is truly one of mythical proportions having a network of over 1 million people around the world! He gave us some pretty good insight into how he built his organization and the power of XanGo which has put Mangosteen on the map.

There were also some interesting deals announced this week. Nu Skin announced a research partnership with Toyo Bio-Pharma. On paper, this is a very strong deal for both companies given Nu Skin’s distribution breadth and Toyo’s global dominance of the process of fermentation and culturing all natural ingredients into cosmetics products.

Another deal was announced which partnered EcoQuest with the American Lung Association. The new relationship stems from Eqcoquest’s unveiling of its new air purification system called “Gemini” - which is the company’s first indoor filtration product that has gotten some pretty rave reviews. If you have any issues with allergies in your home, this is one product yous hould seriously consider.

In keeping with this weeks deals, Pureworks merged with Youngevity which while it was a bit of a surprise to us, does seem to make sense. The value to Pureworks is the expansion of their health and wellness products to now include a complete line of hand, body and home sanitizers. The deal definitely makes sense and can only be good news for the distributors of both companies which now have more products to sell with a larger number of people selling them.

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Nu Skin announced that they have signed a research partnership agreement with Toyo Bio-Pharma, a manufacturer of all natural products in the United States and Japan. In an effort to facilitate the partnership, the two companies have set up a new joint venture in the U.S. called NU Toyo Research, Inc.

Toyo has never before partnered with a direct sales company. As part of the agreement, the two companies will work together to develop proprietary nutraceutical and cosmetics projects for Nu Skin to sell through their independent distributors. Toyo and Nu Skin will share scientific information as well as regulatory insights in an effort to create the new products.

Both companies are excited about the partnership and eager to get started on the creation of new products. “We expect this relationship with Nu Skin Enterprises to nicely complement our current expertise in natural health supplements,” said Yoshi Shiraishi, president and chief operating officer of Toyo Bio-Pharma. “We highly respect the industry-leading research and development capabilities of Nu Skin Enterprises. We believe there is a synergy between the two research teams that both companies can benefit from.”

Joseph Chang, Ph.D, Chief Scientific Officer and President of Product Development at Nu Skin, agrees, “We look forward to developing a robust relationship with joint development opportunities. “We are eager to leverage their knowledge of navigating regulatory requirements for skin care and supplements in Japan.”

The partnership between the two companies should prove to be beneficial to both companies. Toyo is a global pioneer in the use of fermentation and culturing of all natural ingredients to create effective nutraceutical and cosmetic products. That technology, partnered with Nu Skin’s products and enormous worldwide distribution force will no doubt prove to be very profitable for both companies.

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