The distance between food, cosmetics, chemicals, and medicine keeps shrinking, as evidenced by several recent commercial announcements. In May, food giant Kraft and its partner Medisyn, which specializes in discovery of novel active ingredients, announced an expansion of their collaboration. Specifically, in addition to developing health and wellness actives, they’ll be developing additional compounds aimed at improving food quality, food safety, and product performance. Delivering functional actives in food products is meant to keep the company growing in the face of a general stagnation in conventional food and beverages.

Meanwhile, BASF recently said it would spend $3.8 billion to acquire Cognis, which supplies raw materials for pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, dietary supplements, and cosmetics – new markets that the chemicals firm wants to enter. Now comes word that GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK’s) consumer products division is close to launching sports nutrition drink Lucozade in the U.S. The company’s consumer business offers a more predictable revenue stream than the larger but more volatile pharmaceutical unit.

What’s behind the convergence of these ostensibly separate industries? It’s the growing understanding that chronic, lifestyle-associated diseases like obesity and diabetes (and their opposites of lifelong health and wellness) require lifestyle products – not simply medicines, procedures, or healthy habits, but a combination of them all.

DSM’s CEO recently bemoaned the pharma-grade scrutiny that European regulators are applying to foods. But foods are increasingly part of a larger strategy (among individuals as well as corporations) for addressing aging, increasing affluence, and chronic conditions (see the November 18, 2008 LRBJ*). Specifically, that strategy combines food with over-the-counter medicines, nutritional supplements, oral care, and skin care. Moreover, established players in these fields are looking to escape competition from generic drugmakers like Teva and lower-cost petrochemicals from rising Middle East rivals (see the January 5, 2010 LRBJ*). As such, these aren’t opportunistic moves by GSK, BASF, and Kraft – they’re a harbinger of the companies’ and the industries’ futures. Rivals like Pfizer, Bayer, DSM, and Unilever should take note.

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