Instead of routine medicine, Metagenics’ focus is on “functional medicine” which stresses the need for proper nutrition in the field of healthcare. The company makes over 400 all-natural, research-based products.

Metagenics, Gig Harbor’s largest private employer (about 150 people), is headquartered in San Clemente, Calif., and has more than 600 employees worldwide. The Gig Harbor campus, located in an industrial complex in the north side of the city, has a research facility and a manufacturing plant and occupies five buildings, one of which was acquired last year.

The privately held company produces more than 400 all-natural, research-based products. The focus is on functional medicine, a term introduced by Chief Science Officer Jeffrey Bland, who a couple of decades ago saw the need to increase the importance of proper nutrition in the field of healthcare.

Bland, a former University of Puget Sound biochemistry professor with a doctorate in chemistry and Bachelor of Science in biology, says functional medicine looks early on at how disease starts. In fact, he says, there are no actual diseases, only dysfunctions. “Disease is a manifestation of our simplicity and desire to categorize,” he said. “We need a different system to treat chronic disease.”

Although he doesn’t like the idea of applying the term “alternative treatment” to the medical foods the company makes, he says functional medicine is the medicine of the future — and as the field is growing, he sees Metagenics continuing to be a leader and a pioneer.

Bland, a nutritional biochemist, started his own company, HealthComm International, in Gig Harbor in 1984, and initially had three employees. A manufacturing plant was open in 1998, producing a line of medical foods. Two years later, HealthComm merged with its strategic partner, San Clemente-based Metagenics, maintaining its research and development facilities as well as the manufacturing plant in Gig Harbor.

In 2005, a nutrigenomics research center, MetaProteomics, was open in Gig Harbor — the first lab of its kind in the state and only the fourth in the country. Nutrigenomics, according to company literature, refers to “the science of discovering highly active substances from food and other natural sources that can serve as potent dietary signaling molecules to positively affect genetic expression.”

With all the scientific terminology that would escape the average layman, it’s probably a good thing that Metagenics works directly with the medical providers. Its products are not sold in the stores, and can be obtained only through health care practitioners, from naturopaths and chiropractors to medical doctors. Bland said working with the doctors directly allows the company to educate them about the benefits of “nutraceuticals.”

“There is no way we can compete with the pharmaceutical industry,” he said.

The Metagenics manufacturing plant has four certifications, including GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice), which are expensive, according to the company. Its Scientific Advisory Board is comprised of highly accomplished scientists. Nobel Prize winner Dr. Louis J. Ignarro was the most recent addition to the board at the end of last year.

Bland has been recognized as a pioneer in his field. He is one of the founders of Bastyr University, a Washington state-based naturopathic school that was the first federally accredited U.S. university offering degrees in natural medicine. He also founded the Natural Products Quality Assurance Alliance in 1983 by gathering a group of more than 300 leaders from the natural foods industry to develop a quality assurance document that was included into the Federal Register by Sen. Oren Hatch as part of the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act of 1995.

Bland’s work hasn’t gone without criticism. Listed on a “quack watch” Web site, he has faced criticism after receiving a letter from the Federal Trade Commission stating a HealthComm product used unsubstantiated claims in an informercial. Years later, the Federal Drug Administration sent a warning letter stating that some of the Metagenics products violated the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

Bland said both challenges have been resolved, but even though they have been vindicated by science or further proof, they have not been vindicated in the public eye. “That’s the challenge of being a pioneer,” he said. In the case of the more recent FDA case, he said although the company later provided sufficient proof to address the concerns, the government agency only posts its original letter online, not the final outcome, so there is “the implication of guilt by association.”

Despite such drawbacks of being an innovative company, Bland believes Metagenics is positioned well as the industry becomes a bigger player in healthcare. He said the tipping point is not here yet, but functional medicine is gradually “getting stickiness” in medical training. When he first started out in 1983, “it was a very uphill battle,” but in the past five years the field has matured and millions of dollars are being poured into research. Part of it is connected with the medical care field not being able to treat all diseases, he said. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine could be an eye opener: Research found that children born now have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

“We are spending more and more money (on healthcare) for less outcome,” he said.

Those kinds of studies bear bad news, but for Metagenics it proves the timing is right to be in the place it’s at. “We have the answers,” he said. But, before the company can have real weight, Bland believes Metagenics has one more goal to meet. “In order to be an agent of change, you have to get to a certain scale,” he said. That means being a $1 billion company by 2010. “At that point we can start being taken seriously,” he said. “The health care system needs some creative thoughts, you can never solve the problem by universal access.”

He said the goal may seem aggressive, but it can be achieved by continuing the “hypergrowth curve” and following its “ambitious acquisition schedule.”

Looking ahead, the company continues to keep in mind physical growth. Bland said they could probably double capacity with their current buildings, but they are continuously looking for ways to expand, and more facilities are planned for 2007.

Being in Gig Harbor is a choice. Although the company would have grown much faster near a metropolis like Seattle, Bland, a Gig Harbor resident since the ‘70s, said the quality of life has big benefits.

“We’ve recruited a lot of people from around the world because they like the quality of life,” he said.