A Roanoke business plans to market an over-the-counter pill that blocks the absorption of dietary fat.

That's right. You eat a cheeseburger and the pill. The cheeseburger's fat slides on out without becoming part of you.

According to Jay Mullins, the president of ZPRO Pharmaceutical Inc., the pill doesn't soak up all fat consumed, but works well enough to aid in weight control and without the negative side effects of prescription fat pills.

"There is no magic bullet, but this one is a very powerful tool for helping people manage the amount of fat calories in their diet," said Mullins, who stressed that the pill would be intended for long-term use with exercise and good nutrition.

Ten years of research and more than $1 million in time, materials and cash have gone into the pill project, but the venture only recently had anything to do with Western Virginia

That's when the Carilion Biomedical Institute in Roanoke says it persuaded California-based Mullins to establish a presence for his company in Roanoke. The institute, a project of Carilion Health System, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, is seeding a variety of young and expanding companies in hopes of creating new biotechnology employers.

The institute gave ZPRO Pharmaceutical Inc. an undisclosed investment. That funding paid for recently completed animal research in Blacksburg that Mullins said opened the door for testing on humans in Virginia this summer.

While Mullins remains in California, he has a company representative, Sunder Malkani, working out of the institute. Mullins has received assistance from Roanoke-area professionals with planning and soliciting money for the business, which is a recent outgrowth of another Mullins company, ZPRO Chemical Inc.

Mullins, who described his background as a mix of biochemistry, law, patent work and business, said he would like to make the pill in Virginia and distribute the pill from Virginia within two years.

Those operations could be in Roanoke or the Roanoke area; Mullins is tying the extent of his investment in Virginia to how much money he is able to raise from investors in Virginia.

"To actually do anything significant, we're looking for at least a quarter million [dollars]," he said.

He said he discovered Roanoke while searching online for "technology centers" in the United States that might help him commercialize the supplement.

With two-thirds of American adults obese or overweight, the market for obesity-fighting compounds is large, "with lots of room for things that really work and can make a difference, and these guys have some very promising work," said Sam English, the institute's research manager.

The steps involved in launching such a product will be fewer than for a drug, because the Food and Drug Administration won't review the ZPRO pill. It's going to be categorized as a nutritional supplement. Supplements are sold on a buyer-beware basis.

This is not a product the public can try yet. While Mullins said safety and effectiveness studies have been done and that they went well, he declined to release them to The Roanoke Times, saying he planned to release data later on.

He described the pill as a proprietary mix of naturally occurring fibers that attach to fat in the gut and deny the body the chance to absorb it. Termed a "fat sponge," the compound can grab hold of half the fat a person consumes, Mullins said. He said the affected fat passes in the waste, and is evenly distributed. It will cost $20 to $50 monthly, he said.

Mullins said he and a few of his associates have taken the pill. So have some mice at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in Blacksburg.

The mice consumed olive oil and the ZPRO pill, after which a laboratory specialist estimated the amount of fat in the mice's feces. The study director, vet school toxicologist Marion Ehrich, said that based on that study alone, which she cautioned was short and small, "I would say it was safe and I would say it was effective."

Brenda Davy, a dietician and assistant professor in Tech's department of Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise, said numerous over-the-counter items are marketed to consumers as weight-control products. Many don't work, she said. Side effects have hampered acceptance of the only two prescription drugs for weight control: Xenical, a fat-absorption blocker that also causes flatulence, cramping, diarrhea and oily leakage from the anus; and Meridia, which suppresses appetite but raises blood pressure in some people. As a result, many companies are exploring new products, Davy said.