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A once-promising homeopathic nasal spray company with a popular product — but a troubled past — faces difficult times once again.
The company, Venice-based SinoFresh, remains technically in business. Still, problems run deep: The Securities and Exchange Commission delisted SinoFresh's shares, once traded over the counter, in May 2011. The company's website has been taken down, and its office phones were disconnected. Coffee Talk hears the website was shuttered because the company has no inventory left to fulfill orders.
SinoFresh executives, including CEO Dave Olund and onetime board chairman Tom Fitzgerald, didn't return several messages for comment. Chief Financial Officer Bill Baumgardner referred all questions to Olund, only to say the crux of the issue was that the company “wasn't able to raise any money.”
Indeed, capital issues have plagued SinoFresh for nearly a decade. The company had $4 million in sales in 2005, for example, but in 2004 it lost $3.7 million, and 2006 it lost $4.9 million. It held $2.5 million in debt in 2010, according to SEC records. (See Business Review, March 4, 2011.)
But the company, founded in 1999 by Sarasota entrepreneur Charles Fust, built a base of devoted followers courtesy of an over-the-counter homeopathic antiseptic spray to treat congestion and sinus pressure. The company says its patented formula kills germs and bacteria, and dozens of users, including Olund, called the product a solution to sinusitis.
SinoFresh can still make a comeback. Its most valuable asset at this point would seemingly be its intellectual property — given the nasal spray's popularity. Of course, if SinoFresh executives were to sell its patents, instead of finding capital to continue on, that would most likely mean an inglorious end for its long-suffering shareholders.
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