General Info

Alan E. Kligerman is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of AkPharma Inc He is also the founder and was Chief Executive Officer of Lactaid Inc., which introduced and marketed lactase enzymes to the U.S., Canadian and worldwide markets. Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Alan Kligerman attended schools in Margate and Atlantic City, New Jersey. He studied dairy industry at Cornell University, making him the third generation of his family in the dairy business. The family firm, Kligerman Dairies, operated in Atlantic City from 1919 to 1965.In 1962 Mr. Kligerman founded SugarLo Company which produced and marketed low-sugar frozen desserts and other food products In 1974 Mr. Kligerman started the business that evolved into Lactaid Inc., which marketed over-the-counter lactase enzyme tablets and dairy-produced lactose-hydrolyzed milk for persons who are lactose intolerant. In 1990 and 1996, Mr. Kligerman licensed, and then sold, the Lactaid brand to McNeil Consumer Products Division of Johnson Johnson. In every year since 2001, Lactaid Milk has been the largest selling branded milk in the United States.In 1991 Mr. Kligerman founded AkPharma Inc, to market his invention, the oral use of alpha galactosidase enzyme to make beans, legumes, and a wide variety of similar vegetables more digestible. He obtained U.S. and worldwide patents on these uses, and he created the brand name Beano for it. The Beano brand and patent rights were sold to Block Drug Company, Inc, now part of Glaxo SmithKline, in 1997.Starting in 1996 and continuing through the present, AkPharma developed, patented and began marketing Prelief7 brand calcium glycerophosphate, a food acid neutralizer that stops food acid-caused discomfort from acidic foods. Prelief also proved to be of important value in interstitial cystitis, a bladder disease, for which it is the acknowledged best option. Based on its demonstrated cellular effects, AkPharma now engages in extensive clinical studies, research and product development on other internal, respiratory and dermatological uses of calcium glycerophosphate.Mr. Kligerman has been on the Government Affairs and Public Relations Committees of the Dairy & Food Industry Supply Association. He has also been Treasurer and Board member and has served on various committees of the Calorie Control Council. He has twice appeared before the House Judiciary Subcommittee of the U.S. Congress on food industry matters and has testified before the House on behalf of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During the Special Food and Drug Hearings in the early 1970's he was one of the founders of the U.S. Council on Special Foods, created to defend the use of sorbitol as a food ingredient.He was a member of the Advisory Council of Cornell University's Institute of Food Science, 1990-1996. In 1995 he was appointed by President Clinton to the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development, a unit of the U.S. Agency for International Development.Mr. Kligerman has frequently given talks on the subject of the practical applications of enzymes in food and milk modification to industry, regulatory and professional symposia. He has been a visiting speaker at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, the Nice ( France ) University Medical School, Cornell University, The British Milk Marketing Board, Moscow State Academy of Food Industry and the 1993 Prague International Biotechnology Conference. He is contributing author to the books ALactose Digestion@, ( Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1981 ), AMilk Intolerances and Rejection@, ( S.Karger, Basel, 1983 ) and has authored and contributed numerous other articles on various aspects of the development, marketing and legal regulation of special foods. He has numerous patents in food and medical technology and in packaging to his name.In 1987, Mr. Kligerman/Lactaid Inc. shared the Institute of Food Technologists ( IFT ) Industrial Achievement Award, the highest food technology award in the U.S. given in industry