Jim Ratcliff: Let’s Improve Overall Health with better Oral Health

Dentistry and medicine have grown as separate branches of healthcare, and it is essential for the two to now integrate fully. Dentists and hygienists can be on the frontlines of detecting disease, be it COVID or diabetes. To do so, health and dental records need integration to optimize healthcare. Oral health is window to our overall health. The mouth is the primary entry way to our respiratory, circulatory, and digestive systems. Since 2000, Jim Ratcliff, Chairman and CEO of Rowpar Pharmaceuticals, has been stiving to optimize the integrated healthcare by focusing on ways improved oral care can lead to improved overall health. In investigating the many links between oral and systemic health, Jim finds opportunities abound! His passion is to leave the world a better place for having been here.
Driving the Consistent Growth of Organization
Jim Ratcliff was one of the seven individuals who founded Rowpar under the leadership of his father, Perry A. Ratcliff, D.D.S., dental researcher, academic leader, and inventor of ® the original formulas of ClōSYS . Initially, the Company’s products were sold only to dentists who would recommend them to their patients. While active on the Board since inception, Jim became executive leader of the Company in 2000. In the ensuing 20 years of his service, Rowpar has moved from a family firm to one characterized by a professional management team and a professional board, with the members of each having strong experience, knowledge, and skills in the key areas of the business. Also, company has moved from a boutique company selling only through dentists to a fast-moving consumer goods company selling nationally and internationally, through major pharmacy, retail, and grocery chains as well as dental and medical supply companies.
Innovative Oral Health Solutions
Located in Scottsdale, AZ, since 1991, Rowpar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. provides innovative oral health solutions to dental and medical professionals and to the general consumer, helping people get well and stay well in the USA, Australia, Canada, China, Europe, India, Korea, ® Russia and South Africa. Its ClōSYS brand is recommended by leading dentists, hygienists, doctors, ® nurses and fitness experts. ClōSYS toothpastes, oral rinses and oral sprays are top selling oral care products in U.S. retailers such as Albertsons, CVS, H-E-B, Kroger, Meijer, Target, Walgreens, Walmart and is an Amazon Preferred Product.
Leading from the Front
Rowpar Pharmaceuticals has always been a mission-driven company. It’s vision of helping people get well and stay well through improved oral health has only been amplified by the pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 infects largely through the eyes, nose, and mouth. Rowpar has positioned itself on the frontline of this battle.
Central to any organization is its people, and Rowpar Pharmaceuticals has a wonderful team. As with many other firms, Rowpar quickly established work-at-home capabilities (computers, phones, etc.). Company extended its liberal leave policies so that individuals could take whatever measures were required to get well, should they get sick. It reduced headcount in office to 25% and to essential workers to enable social distancing, but also to mitigate risk employees face in making a daily commute to work. Special dispensation was made for those who are immune compromised.
Focus of Innovation in Oral Care
Optimum oral care necessarily focuses on the twin pandemics of the mouth: gum disease and dental caries. Both affect two-thirds or more of the population, both are growing rapidly, and both significantly impact systemic health. Persons with gum disease, for example, have higher risk of adverse pregnancy, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and gum disease makes it more difficult to manage diabetes or COPD.
Innovation in oral care begins with the oral mirobiome, viewing it as an ecology that individuals carry with them. When that ecology is disrupted, disease happens. Disease often occurs within biofilms which protect pathogens from the oral care products designed to limit their overgrowth within the oral ecology. While many people are concerned about “bad breath” for example, the proper focus should be on the disease causing the bad breath.
Being Solution Oriented
Rowpar Pharmaceuticals wants to provide perfect solutions for people’s oral care needs. While competitors focus on product attributes (such as whitening), ClōSYS products align with people’s lifestyle desires, how they redound to their oral health, and how company can be helpful. So, if one has an oral sore and one uses its products, and the oral sore disappears after a week or so of use, then Company’s products have been a solution to one’s oral care needs. Same can be said of oral malodor or sensitivity or tooth decay. Rowpar ‘s ClōSYS products are for people who seek improved oral health first.
Partnership between Dentists and Individuals
The Rowpar approach to oral health relies on a partnership between dental professionals and individual patients. Individuals cannot fully remove oral biofilms (and pathogens within) by home oral hygiene alone. Periodic cleaning of the teeth by a dental profession is required to prevent overgrowth of pathogens. Similarly, the work of dental professions is compromised when the regular home oral care does not sustain the cleaning, doesn’t inhibit the regrowth of dental biofilms, and doesn’t strengthen tooth enamel.
Leadership in Oral Care Products
Rowpar’s partnership with dental professionals occurs in the office as well; with COVID, even more so. Currently Dentists and hygienists are using ClōSYS® products to rinse patients’ mouths prior to dental procedures and to sanitize dental devices, such as ultrasonic scalers, to reduce microbial aerosols generated from their use. Rowpar continues to provide leadership in oral care through the introduction of new products to meet the needs of dentists and health-conscious consumers.
Helping People to Get well and Stay Well
Rowpar is mission-driven to help people get well as stay well. Right now, it is engaged in research into how oral care products may help mitigate the COVID risk. Recent independent laboratory testing shows that its ClōSYS products reduced SARS-CoV-2 viral load (the virus that causes COVID-19 disease) by up to 98.4% and reduced Influenza-A (a co-morbidity factor with COVID-19) by 99.99%. While lab tests are encouraging, clinical trials are necessary. ClōSYS products are being used in clinical trials at 3 major research universities to determine efficacy with healthy and infected humans.