Lonza offers slow release niacin for cholesterol-lowering products

Lonza has signed an exclusive agreement with Innovite, a firm that has already used the slow-release technology for Enduracin, a product being sold over the Internet.

It will offer the new Niamax brand formulation in tablets to manufacturers targeting the healthcare practitioner market with cholesterol-lowering products. On display at SupplySide East this month, the product is the first produced by Lonza that is ready for use by manufacturers.

Niacin, or vitamin B3, is needed for protein, carbohydrate and fat metabolism, with deficiency of the nutrient associated with the disease pellagra.

But niacin also has major benefits for heart health, prompting the NIH to make it a 'first-line' therapy for people with raised cholesterol levels in 1988. The vitamin has been shown to work on the entire cholesterol profile, lowering total cholesterol, LDL and triglycerides and raising HDL levels.

The cholesterol market is booming, helping last year's best-selling drug, Lipitor, reach more than $9 billion in sales. But statin drugs can have harmful side-effects , making natural products such as sterols and vitamins a major category in the supplement industry.

However supplement makers have resisted marketing high-dose niacin because of flushing. Flushing events from poorly formulated niacin products has led to calls to manufacturers putting an end to the products, Dan Murray, associate director of nutrition at Lonza Inc​, told NutraIngredientsUSA.com.

"There are different ways to slow the release of niacin but our wax-matrix formulation is backed by six human trials that confirm the cholesterol and triglyceride benefits,"​ he added.

The studies have shown one of the lowest reported rates of flushing (less than 5 per cent), according to Murray.

And dosage levels should also be cut in half when a manufacturer moves from plain niacin to sustained release niacin, suggests the company.

The product is available in 500mg tablets.