Spherix's Toothy Smile

Updated from 11:09 a.m. EST

Spherix(SPEX Quote), the sugar-substitute maker whose stock has more than tripled this week on prolific volume, has a few cavities.

For one thing, the Maryland company bills itself as a science concern, but just about all of its $22 million in annual revenue comes from a tourist-reservation business it manages for state and national parks. It's a niche business that Spherix has managed to achieve some success in.

Selling tickets to see Old Faithful is not what got investors excited about Spherix, however. It's the company's long-held dream of finding a way to cash in on a low-calorie sugar alternative called tagatose that's got investors frothing.

So far, Spherix has found few takers for its sugar substitute, which it has been trying to market for the past nine years under the brand name Naturlose.

Arla Foods, a Danish company with the exclusive license to manufacture and sell tagatose, has not generated any meaningful royalties from sales to food and beverage companies. Spherix also has made little from its attempt to market the milk byproduct as a sweetener for use in toothpaste, mouthwash and over-the-counter drugs.

There seems to be little demand for Naturlose as a food additive given the growing popularity of Johnson & Johnson's(JNJ Quote) low-calorie sugar product Splenda.

But hope springs eternal at Spherix, which believes it's on the way to getting Naturlose approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a drug to treat Type 2 diabetes.

On Dec. 6, Spherix issued a press release saying the FDA had "cleared the way" for the company to begin the final phase of clinical tests on Naturlose before seeking approval from the agency to sell it as a diabetes treatment. The company said the FDA gave the green light to begin the clinical trials following a meeting last month with several of Spherix's scientists.