By Loren Israelsen, president of the United Natural Products Alliance
On the cusp of its 30th anniversary, there’s been a lot of talk about the look forward provided by the 1985 movie, Back to the Future. A similar look back at the natural health products industry to see the future is not such a far-fetched idea. A number...
Qualitas Health has achieved a significant milestone with the launch of two consumer products that feature the company’s algal-based EPA ingredient branded as Almega PL.
The landslide victory of Republican House and Senate candidates in the recent midterm elections will have broad implications for the dietary supplements business. But even with the GOP now holding majorities in both houses, it’s still business as usual,...
Michael McGuffin, president of the American Herbal Products Association, has a unique perspective on the 20th anniversary of DSHEA having started in the herbal products industry in 1974, twenty years before the law was passed. The law, as he sees it,...
The dietary supplement business has gone from fighting for its life to enjoying the fruits of an open, dynamic marketplace, and it’s all because of DSHEA, according to Loren Isrealsen, president of the United Natural Products Alliance.
The GRAS process as it stands in the United States is vulnerable to criticism based on possible conflicts of interest and low-quality safety work, said Claire Kruger, PhD, president of Spherix Consulting, a division of ChromaDex.
The submissions of New Dietary Ingredient notifications seems as fraught as ever, and part of the issue is that regulators are not as communicative as they could be, according to Alex Schauss, senior director of AIBMR Life Sciences.
Plandai Biotechnology Inc. will not be required to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration for New Dietary Ingredient status in order to market and sell its Phytofare Catechin Complex as a dietary supplement, enabling the firm to start marketing...
Preliminary figures from the American Herbal Products Association show that one in four recent New Dietary Ingredient notifications went through without objections from the Food and Drug Administration. Whether that represents an improvement in the overall...
China’s confusing thicket of regulations has some real costs for American dietary supplement companies. A report from an industry association has calculated the costs of those regulations in terms of lost business: $8.37 billion in lost potential exports...
Joerg Gruenwald, a longtime natural products industry consultant, said the advent of DSHEA was a huge event in Europe as well as America. It helped give European dietary supplement companies secure access to the biggest market in the world.
The discourse around eye health carotenoid meso-zeaxanthin (MZ) has been marred by commercial interests, according to supplement firm OmniActive Health Technologies.
Meso-zeaxanthin (MZ) proponent says a French government report on the fraudulent use of meso-zeaxanthin in eye health supplements casts unnecessary doubt on a safe and viable compound.
The Natural Products Association (NPA) announced this morning that Daniel Fabricant, PhD, will succeed John Shaw as chief executive officer of the organization effective immediately. Shaw had tendered his resignation several days ago, the organization...
The upcoming Oxford Conferenece on the Science of Botanicals will have broader scope this year as part of a retrospective on the 20th anniversary of the Dietary Supplement Health and Eduction Act, said Ikhlas Khan, PhD, one of the conference’s main organizers.
A long time critic of the dietary supplement industry, Dr Pieter Cohen, MD, has called for a premarket approval regime and a modified adverse event reporting system for dietary supplements in an article published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Industry...
After a four-year delay, FDA has at last released a final version of its guidance on liquid dietary supplements. The document doesn’t much change the line of thinking offered in the draft version but does offer more detail and clarification and in general...
The legislative office of China's State Council has been urged that its term “health-food product”, which refers to all dietary supplements, is too broad a concept and by definition can include “anything that is healthy for humans to consume”.
Sports supplement manufacturer USPLabs has recalled lots of its OxyElite Pro products after receiving a letter directing the action from FDA motivated by reports of liver illnesses in Hawaii associated with the product. FDA also it directed the recall...
The question whether an NDI notification opens the door for follow on ingredients has yet to be definitively answered. But sources say the question is a lot clearer when the putative follow on ingredient might not even be the same thing.
A bill reintroduced by Senators Dick Durbin, D-Il and Richard Blumenthal, D-CT to require registration of all dietary supplements with FDA is a solution in search of a problem, according to trade organizations.
The US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee has sent a stern message to the Food and Drug Administration on the subject of the draft New Dietary Ingredients guidance. The message in a nutshell: Get a move on.
Differing regulatory environments can play havoc with a company's research plans, say consultant Joerg Gruenwald, PhD. But recent, sometimes bitter, experience with the European Food Safety Authority has shed some light on how to negotiate this...
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-NM, one of the dietary supplement industry’s new champions on Capitol Hill, spoke with NutraIngredients-USA to offer his views on the industry and the challenges it faces now.
Relora, the stress-reducing supplement ingredient from Next Pharmaceuticals, has cleared a major regulatory hurdle by obtaining approval from Health Canada for sale in that country.
Benfotiamine, a form of thiamine or vitamin B1, has been on the market for decades. So what makes BenfoPure, a branded form of the ingredient now represented by XSTO Solutions, special? The differentiator, said XSTO’s Dan Murray, is in the details.
The ancient Israelites had Moses and Aaron. The dietary supplements industry has Senators Tom Harkin and Orrin Hatch, but not for long—Harkin has announced that he will retire at the end of his current term next year.
The response to the new GRAS Self-Determination Inventory Database (GSID) has been “overwhelmingly positive and supportive”, according to its creator AIBMR Life Sciences, which has helped dozens of firms prepare for GRAS determinations.
One of the most interesting new product launches at Supply Side West last week was stress-buster Zembrin, the first patented, standardized and clinically studied extract of Sceletium tortuosum, a succulent plant known by the San people of South Africa...
A new database of self-affirmed GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) determinations has been launched to tackle concerns about a lack of transparency in the process.
PL Thomas (PLT) and South African partner HG&H Pharmaceuticals are set to launch the first patented, standardized and clinically studied extract of Sceletium tortuosum, a succulent plant known by the San people of South Africa as ‘Kanna’ that has...
With the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) poised to publish guidance on distinguishing between beverages and liquid dietary supplements, one analyst tells BeverageDaily.com he doesn’t see the agency cracking down too hard on traditional energy drinks.
There are serious weaknesses in a system that allows firms to self-affirm the safety of food ingredients without the approval or knowledge of regulators, according to researchers conducting a probe into the nation’s food additives law.
ChromaDex is gearing up for a commercial launch of Nicotinamide riboside (NR) - a next generation version of vitamin B3 (niacin) claimed to help protect the brain, battle the bulge and improve blood glucose control - at the end of this year or early next.
A completely new source of the coveted long chain omega-3s EPA and DHA should be commercialized by the end of the decade thanks to a multi-million-dollar tie up between ingredient giants BASF and Cargill to produce the next generation of canola oils.
USPLabs has taken legal action against a Max Muscle franchisee in Reno, Nevada, accusing owner Philip Tracy of making "false and disparaging" comments about its Jack3d supplement, and its core ingredient DMAA (1,3-Dimethylamylamine).
NuMe Health - the New Orleans-based firm behind NM504, a novel ‘cobiotic’ ingredient targeting prediabetics - has secured a $1.5m cash injection to support plans to commercialize it.
The law firm responsible for the flurry of class action lawsuits against 10 firms named by the FDA in its DMAA crackdown last week has now targeted four other firms selling products containing the stimulant.
They’ve had the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads for months. So when 10 firms selling DMAA supplements were finally told to put up or shut up by the FDA last week, it looked like the game might finally be up for the controversial stimulant.
In warning letters sent as part of its recent crackdown on DMAA, the FDA says “synthetically produced DMAA is not a dietary ingredient and, therefore, is not eligible to be used as an active ingredient in a dietary supplement”.
UPDATED May 3 - All 10 recipients of FDA warning letters over supplements containing DMAA (1,3-Dimethylamylamine) have now been targeted in a new wave of class action lawsuits in California alleging their products contain DMAA in a synthetic form that...
Horphag Research has parted company with the executives it brought in to run its new functional foods and beverages division Horphag Research Nutrition (HRN) and discontinued Salty-R, the first product to emerge from it.
Florida-based ATM Metabolics is in advanced negotiations with some of the biggest food and beverage brands in the US and Europe about incorporating Emulin - the insulin-mimicking active ingredient in GNC’s top-selling glucose control supplement GC7X -...
Energy drinks and foods, eye health supplements and skin creams are just some of the products likely to emerge from an LA-based firm on a mission to turn L-Ergothioneine – an antioxidant it claims has “unparalleled” benefits – into a household name.
If high-profile ingredients such as baobab and Moringa oleifera really take off in the next couple of years, Africa could finally start to get the attention it deserves as a source of top-flight nutraceuticals, according to one supplier.
A nutrient powerhouse to rival baobab, Moringa oleifera is starting to attract growing interest in the US dietary supplement and food industry, with a segment due to air on Dr Oz tonight predicted to prompt a surge in demand.
The FDA’s warning letter to the maker of melatonin-laced Slowtivate Relaxation Drink has reignited the debate over the legal line between liquid dietary supplements and conventional beverages - and should make some firms very nervous - say lawyers.
Africa has a wealth of indigenous plant species, but has not been as successful as India and China at commercializing them as nutraceuticals, one South African firm trying to spread the word about the continent’s natural ingredients tells Elaine Watson
