Indena buys into Thorne as it targets US supplements-pharma niche
Christian Artaria, Indena's Milan-based marketing director and head of functional food development, told NutraIngredients the partnership was a natural progression because the two firms had been working together over many years.
“It will have little impact on our relationship with other customers because we are targeting very specific areas, particularly the practitioner channel and these indications of cancer and diabetes,” he said.
“Thorne has been a preferred customer of ours for many years and we are both interested in the borderline between supplements and pharmaceuticals, to help people with these pathologies.”
The partnership will see Indena offering its patented extracts to Thorne for research and development in the practitioner area, and this work will itself build on the collaboration Thorne entered into in 2010 with Swiss player, Helsinn Pharmaceuticals.
Indena has also committed to providing data and information about its extracts (non-generic) to the medical portal, Healthelements.com.
“Through this collaboration we will work to develop a new generation of high-quality supplements with remarkable safety and efficacy profiles that will help people improve their health and quality of life,” said Indena general manager, Daniele Giavini in a statement.
Thorne CEO Paul Jacobson added:“Indena shares our commitment to improving health, and we expect that this effort will lead to many important advances in supplements based on botanicals and other nutritional products in diverse areas of health including cancer support, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and nervous system disorders in the years ahead.”
In an interview with NutraIngredients-USA.com this year, Jacobson observed that 80-90% of cancer patients take food supplements.
