Curing disorders such as liver damage caused by alcohol.
Three cosmetics companies - one in the United States and two in France - are evaluating the drug under agreements with the international patent holder, Melbournebased McFarlane Laboratories , and are set to sell it in a variety of forms.
The drug was discovered by Japanese professor Takuo Kosuge, a world authority on natural compounds , after he set out more than 20 year ago to find out why shark oil was a successful folk cure for skin problems.