A few days ago, we proudly announced Cheers’ intention to do an Online Public Offering (“OPO”) that our customers and supporters can invest in on an anticipated launch date (assuming investor interest) of May 18, 2021. Well, it’s with similar enthusiasm that today we announce the release of our newest product—Cheers Restore in a beverage form!
While making Cheers Restore into a beverage is exciting in its own right, what makes this product so special is the technology behind it. Through in-vivo studies, we have found that our novel ADAPT™ technology used in this product could increase the bioavailability of DHM by up to 19x—making significantly more DHM absorb into your bloodstream.
One of Cheers’ major goals over the upcoming years is expanding through retail. We believe that this new product is a perfect fit for the undertaking. This blog post is all about the history of this product, the technology behind it, and why we believe that it will become a big part of the future for Cheers.
We hope you get the chance to try it before considering an investment! 🥂
Cheers,
Brooks Powell
Founder & CEO
Please note: No money or other consideration is being solicited, and if sent in response, will not be accepted. No offer to buy the securities can be accepted and no part of the purchase price can be received until the offering statement is filed and only through an intermediary’s platform. An indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind. Reserving securities is simply an indication of interest and implies no commitment by either the buyer or seller. If and when this offering goes live on May 18 (assuming there is sufficient investor interest), please read the full Form C offering statement filed with the SEC before choosing to invest, which will be available on our intermediary portal at startengine.com/cheers
In 2018, we went on Shark Tank and discussed with Mark Cuban the R&D we were doing with my alma mater, one of the leading Ivy League universities, to increase the bioavailability of DHM. The idea was simple: whoever figures out how to increase the bioavailability of DHM will be able to offer the market significantly better products than any other company can produce—and therefore, be able to gain long-term competitive advantage in the growing category of alcohol-related health. This is important because DHM’s efficacy is inherently limited by its poor oral bioavailability. In other words, when DHM is consumed by mouth—such as through capsules or beverages—very little is absorbed into the bloodstream where it can be used.
If you haven’t seen our Shark Tank episode, here’s a summary: Mark Cuban didn’t think we could do it. And after a long discussion of science, the other sharks didn’t get to hear anything about the business itself, and so dropped out. Before walking out, Robert Herjavec told me that I had just experienced a “Cuban Heist.”
Well, after nearly a decade since I first discovered DHM’s alcohol-related properties in the academic literature, millions of dollars in funding, and recruiting some of the most prominent institutions and people in bioavailability science, I am proud to announce that we have finally figured it out.
With DHM, we tried nanoparticle formulations, hot-melt extrusions, spray-dried dispersions, nanoemulsions, and looked into even more bioavailability enhancing strategies that we decided would have little-to-no probability of being successful. It wasn’t until we tried combining DHM with a commercially viable natural permeabilizer that we cracked the code in a major way. In one of our in-vivo studies, we found that combining DHM with capric acid at a specific and unobvious ratio threshold could increase DHM bioavailability by up to 19x.
Capric acid is simply a fatty acid salt—such as those found in MCT oil. It exists in high amounts from natural sources such as coconut oil (~10%) and palm oil (~4%). While MCT oil is generally considered a healthy form of fat and good for your diet, capric acid is further known to have potential health benefits of its own, such as through being an AMPA receptor inhibitor at specific therapeutic doses.
While capric acid may have its own health benefits, we have found a different primary purpose for it. We have discovered that capric acid can be utilized as a permeability enhancer for DHM.
DHM is generally considered a BCS Class IV compound in the academic literature, meaning that its bioavailability is thought of as being limited by both poor solubility and poor permeability. In our research with DHM, we found many ways to increase the solubility of DHM. The alleged solubility problem of DHM is a relatively easy problem to overcome. However, as we moved from promising in-vitro studies of solubility-enhancing formulations of DHM to more complex in-vivo studies, we found that increasing the solubility of DHM did not have a large impact in the overall bioavailability of DHM. Instead of merely increasing the solubility of DHM as a means to increase bioavailability, we discovered a major breakthrough in DHM bioavailability only when we increased the permeability of DHM.
The way capric acid works to increase the bioavailability of DHM is by binding to cellular tight junctions in the GI tract and temporarily allowing larger molecules, such as DHM, to absorb at a significantly increased rate. Our in-vivo studies revealed that when capric acid was co-administered with DHM at a ratio of at least 2:1 that DHM bioavailability increased by up to 19x.
As a metaphor, consider an analogy from American football. One example of running plays is where a fullback runs ahead of a running back, leading through or opening up a hole in the defense for a split second, allowing the running back to slip through. When it comes to our ADAPT technology, capric acid (the fullback) is co-administered with DHM (the running back) so that capric acid can bind to cellular tight junctions in the stomach, temporarily expanding them wide enough that DHM can absorb through the stomach lining and into the bloodstream at a much greater rate and to a fuller extent. This allows much more DHM to be absorbed, and therefore increases the bioavailability of DHM significantly.
I still vividly remember hearing the news. The next day my wife and I were driving a few hours away to visit family and so were trying to get to bed early. As I was setting an alarm for the wee hours of the next morning, I received an email at 8:55pm from Professor Bob Prud’homme, one of Cheers’ science advisors. He was telling me that the most recent in-vivo study had significant results. What he said next would prevent me from getting any sleep that night.
I still remember one of his remarks: “From a scientific perspective the results are most impressive. These are some of the best results I have seen on permeabilizers enhancing delivery.” It’s hard to express how special this is when its coming from one of the world’s preeminent bioavailability enhancing researchers who often works with innovation-leading organizations such as The Gates Foundation, Merck, and Eli Lilly.
All of the hard work and investment had finally paid off. This was arguably the largest gamble of my career and we had been dealt a royal flush on the last card—it was the result of a multi-faceted sponsored research agreement (SRA) with one of the most prestigious Ivy League universities. Funding complex R&D projects is always risky, but when they work, they pay huge dividends. From both a scientific perspective (Bob’s) and a commercial perspective (mine), this was an even better result than I ever could have imagined all those years ago when we started pursuing the aspirations of bringing a bioavailability enhanced form of DHM to the market and creating the category of alcohol-related health.
Shortly after the discovery, we began work with a highly respected intellectual property (IP) law firm to file a patent application called “Formulations of Dihydromyricetin and a Permeabilizer”—which today is the patent application behind our ADAPT technology (Accelerated DHM Absorption Permeabilizer Technology). Because this technology was the result of an SRA, and I was a contributor to the claims of the invention, Cheers is therefore a co-inventor on the patent with an Ivy League university. For exclusive rights to the technology, Cheers has negotiated an exclusive license from the Office of Technology & Licensing (OTL) department of this Ivy League university. (Note: The licensing agreement prevents us from using the university’s name in advertising—a clause that’s in all of their agreements, not just ours. That said, if you’re curious, it’s not hard to figure out which one with a little googling.)
I’m proud to announce that not only have we created a groundbreaking discovery and technology, but we have built significant protections around it, and have further secured the exclusive rights to use it. Bringing this to the world is just one of the many ways that Cheers is leading the category of alcohol-related health.
Over the course of the past year, Cheers has been working on implementing the ADAPT technology into our suite of products. With retail expansion on the horizon, we knew that a beverage form of our best-selling product, Cheers Restore, would be ideal. Therefore, we focused all of our initial efforts of implementing this technology into a beverage. To do this, we worked with multiple award-winning beverage formulators across the United States. We went through numerous iterations of the product with each of them.
While it was more expensive to do this way, the results speak for themselves. One of our beverage formulating partners absolutely blew away the competition. By one of the last iterations on the product, we knew that we had nailed it. We created a highly functional beverage that doesn’t sacrifice either efficacy or taste.
All in all, the beverage has 500mg of DHM and 1500mg of capric acid. While you might be thinking that this is less than the DHM amount in our Cheers Restore capsules, due to the ADAPT technology and its bioavailability enhancing effects of up to 19x, this should lead to far more DHM that is able to be absorbed into your bloodstream. Additionally, you will get some of our other common ingredients, including milk thistle and prickly pear extract.
On top of all that, the beverage contains 400mg of dissolving l-cysteine. When alcohol is metabolized, is must first convert into something called acetaldehyde, which is 10-30x more toxic than alcohol is itself. In many ways, alcohol’s toxic effects are related to the acetaldehyde rather than the alcohol itself. In fact, acetaldehyde is a major carcinogen—i.e., a known cause of cancer. You may want alcohol—but you definitely don’t want the acetaldehyde byproduct of it. Unfortunately, the two are tied together by virtue of how alcohol is metabolized in the human body.
To counter this, we use l-cysteine. In the presence of acetaldehyde, l-cysteine reacts with the acetaldehyde to form something called 2-methylthiazolidine-4-carboxylic acid (or “MTCA” for short). MTCA is non-toxic and is eventually cleared from the body. In other words, we use l-cysteine to neutralize acetaldehyde, which is significant because doing this can reduce overall exposure to acetaldehyde.
On the label of our beverage, you will notice that we have included a second technology: DART™ (which is short for Dissolving Acetaldehyde Reduction Technology). Our DART technology is simply a dissolving form of l-cysteine that is designed to be co-administered around the time that alcohol is consumed, and thereby works to reduce the amount of acetaldehyde that ends up circulating throughout the body.
Our new beverage is the byproduct of years of research and leading the industry in terms of alcohol-related health. It should go without saying, but I and most of Cheers’ management team, investors, and advisors are all drinkers ourselves. I love alcohol—but I also want to be able to enjoy it throughout a long, healthy, and happy lifetime. This type of R&D is core to our long-term mission and vision here at Cheers.
In June 2017, we officially launched Cheers to the world following my graduation from college. Ever since then, we have solely sold Cheers online. While we have done well through these online sales channels such as our website and Amazon.com—including over $25m+ in sales to over 300,000 customers since our launch, it has always been our dream to be sold anywhere that alcohol is sold. To do that, we need to be an omnichannel brand.
We believe that our new beverage form of Cheers Restore is the perfect product to use for our venture into retail, wholesale, and on-premise expansion.
As we look to the future of Cheers, we see three main channels to sell our products through:
We believe that both the capsule and beverage forms of our products will sell well in standard wholesale & retail channels. However, we feel that the beverage will be especially fitting for on-premise locations.
As a case study for this, we’re looking to the success of Red Bull in the alcohol industry. Red Bull is sold at almost every bar across the United States. Beyond that, it has become a major ingredient behind the bar as well.
For example, you don’t have to be a big drinker to know about a Vegas Bomb—a bomb-style drink that consists of a mixed shot of whiskey and schnapps dropped into a glass of Red Bull and consumed in one go. And of course, who could forget about the popularity of Jägerbombs back in the day—a shot of Jägermeister dropped into a glass of Red Bull.
One of the big differences between Cheers and Red Bull is that the Cheers Restore beverage doesn’t contain caffeine or sugar—and is instead good for you. What could be a better pairing than Cheers Restore mixed with alcohol—or simply drinking a can of Cheers Restore at the end of the night? As the world becomes more health-conscious, we think that this new Cheers product is poised well to become a healthy addition to the ingredients that sit behind the bar.
Cheers’ management team has had a lot of fun testing our new beverage over the past few weeks at the local drinking hole that’s walking distance from our headquarters.
So far, we’ve crafted quite a few fun and tasty drinks. And, we know that once we get it into the hands of skilled bartenders and mixologists around the country—magic is bound to happen. The names are bound to be clever as well. We can’t wait to see what our future on-premise partners come up with.
From the past few weeks, here’s a few of our favorites:
Those are some of the fancier ones. But to be honest, most alcohols—especially clear ones like vodka, gin, and tequila—can mix in easily by just pouring a shot into a glass of Cheers Restore and stirring. It doesn’t get any simpler than that to make an easy drinking, health-conscious, mixed drink!
From anecdotal evidence among testing with Cheers’ management team, we’re excited to report that the Cheers Restore beverage not only is a blast when worked into an evening of drinks, but it really does wonders for how you feel the next morning—even better than our current capsules. When you increase the bioavailability of DHM by as much as we did and use dissolving l-cysteine to reduce acetaldehyde during and after drinking, this is exactly what you would expect to happen!
We can’t wait to hear what our most loyal customers have to say about it. We will likely do another human efficacy study on the new beverage product like we have done for our original Cheers Restore capsules to round out the current R&D project for this product. But given the fact that our Online Public Offering is about to launch, we didn’t want to wait any longer to release this product so that our customers and prospective investors could try it before potentially investing. As they say, with products like these, the proof is in the pudding!
For us, the future of Cheers at on-premise locations is easy to imagine. Just like Red Bull, our goal is for Cheers Restore to become a standard product sold at bars across the country. It just makes sense to be able to buy Cheers and alcohol together!
Right now, our ADAPT technology is only in this beverage. But rest assured, we’re currently doing the R&D to put this technology into our capsule form of Cheers Restore as well. We anticipate releasing this new capsule product by the end of 2021. We’re proud to say that this will be the most convenient and cost-effective solution for getting the most bioavailable DHM product possible. In terms of DHM delivered per dose at a reasonable price point, no one else comes close—that’s the magic of our recent major R&D breakthrough.
As always, we can’t thank you enough for the support. Our customers are family, and so we couldn’t be more excited to share all of these updates with you!
From our family to yours, Cheers!
Brooks Powell
Founder & CEO
Cheers is the leading alcohol-related health brand focused on developing products that support your liver and help you feel great the next day. As a student at Princeton, Cheers’ founder Brooks Powell discovered the potential advantage of incorporating the natural plant extract Dihydromyricetin (DHM) into an after-alcohol consumption regimen and began working with his professors to make products that addressed the unique challenges of alcohol-related health. . Since its official launch in 2017, Cheers has sold more than 13 million doses to over 300 thousand customers. The research-backed line of products includes three versions of supplemental pills and powders – Restore, Hydrate and Protect. Cheers is now releasing read-to-drink versions of their products—starting with Cheers Restore. Each product is equipped to meet different health needs such as rehydration, liver support, and acetaldehyde exposure. Cheers places an equal emphasis on the responsibility and health aspects of its mission and vision. The brand’s mission is bringing people together by promoting fun, responsible, and health-conscious alcohol consumption. The vision is a world where everyone can enjoy alcohol throughout a long, healthy, and happy lifetime. For more information, visit cheershealth.com or join the social conversation at @cheershealth.