Key Players and Innovative Start-Ups in Nutraceuticals: Emerging strategies in ingredients, pharma, food and drinks

Report Description:

Nutraceuticals are bioactive compounds with properties beneficial to health that are often concentrated extracts from fruits, herbs, seeds, specific lipids and vegetables. Nutraceuticals are often used to fortify food products, creating functional foods, or can be taken as supplements. Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, are bioactive compounds intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease. Pharmaceuticals are most often new chemical entities.

Well known nutraceuticals include essential fatty acids such as omega-3 oils, probiotics, prebiotics, plant sterols, botanicals, superfruit extracts, carotenoid antioxidants and soy protein/isoflavones. Over the past few years, most of these nutraceutical ingredients have made good progress in the marketplace and are now available in a wide range of foods and drinks, as well as supplements. Some have also been developed as pharmaceuticals.

The consumer environment is driving growth in the nutraceuticals market. Over the past decade, consumers have become more concerned for their health and are increasingly inclined to self-medicate. Healthcare providers, too, are keen to shift some of the burden of healthcare costs to individuals and recognize that functional foods may provide alternatives to medications. These factors are reflected in the current market for ingredients in the health and nutrition sector, which was estimated to be worth US$4 billion in 2009.

Key features of this report

• Identify leading companies at the forefront of the nutraceuticals industry who will drive the market for a new generation of “value added” health products.
• Provide case studies of these leading companies in the finished goods (foods and drinks), ingredients and other raw materials, or pharmaceutical sectors.
• Analyze  the key trends and issues confronting the different industry sectors at this time.
• Review the backgrounds, discovery strategies and business models of new and innovative entrants to this marketplace.

Scope of this report

• Identify the companies leading the field in the nutraceuticals industry from across a range of different market sectors
• Review their key products and the ways in which these products are being marketed to consumers
• Learn more about the increased efforts of these companies to establish the health benefits of their products in clinical trials
• Identify innovative companies and discover the potential of their various approaches for discovery and marketing novel nutraceuticals

Key Market Issues

• The food market is changing: Over the past decade, consumers have become more concerned for their health and are increasingly inclined to self-medicate. Healthcare providers, too, are keen to shift some of the burden of healthcare costs to individuals and recognize that functional foods may provide alternatives to medications. These factors are reflected in the current market for ingredients in the health and nutrition sector, which was estimated to be worth US$4billion in 2009.
• Nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals are related in that both are types of compound that demonstrate bioactive properties. Nutraceuticals are substances that are extracted from foods and are used either to fortify other food products in order to enhance their nutritional properties or are taken as dietary supplements in the form of pills, capsules of soft-gels. The clinical evidence behind a nutraceutical products varies widely; some have been tested with pharmaceutical rigor to demonstrate properties beneficial to health, while for other the evidence to support such claims is slim.

Key findings from this report

• New food and drink regulations were introduced in Europe in 2006 and have been generating uncertainty and frustration throughout the industry. The European Food Safety Authority is processing more than 4,000 generic health claims, as well as health claims for emerging and proprietary science or disease risk reduction. The regulator has rejected a large number of the applications reviewed to date (September 2009) and has missed a number of deadlines, suggesting that the overall process may take much longer than expected.
• FDA regulations are generally regarded as less stringent than those in the EU. Nevertheless, they come under criticism for not allowing companies to use in their product labeling relevant data generated in a clinical setting that links the food with a health benefit. Some of the smaller, innovative companies reviewed for this report are developing their business models with this fact in mind.

Key questions answered

• Which companies are the market leaders in the nutraceuticals industry, as identified from a review of finished goods companies, raw materials manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies?
• What are the key products of these companies and how do they exemplify the future direction of the nutraceutical industry?
• How are the market leaders approaching the need for research to back their products with health claims that are understandable by the consumer?

Table of Contents

• Key Players and Innovative Start-ups in Nutraceuticals: Emerging strategies in ingredients, pharma, food and drinks

Executive summary 10

• Defining nutraceuticals 10
• Market leaders: food and drinks manufacturers 11
• Market leaders: ingredients 12
• Market leaders: pharmaceutical companies 13
• Developing new ingredients: innovative start-up companies 14
• Market drivers and trends 15

Chapter 1 Defining nutraceuticals 18

• Summary 18
• Introduction 19
• Defining nutraceuticals 20
• Examples of nutraceuticals 22
• Omega-3 oils 24
• Probiotics 25
• Prebiotics 28
• Plant stanols and sterols 29
• Superfruits and antioxidants 30
• The nutraceuticals market 31
• Report outline 34

Chapter 2 Market leaders: Food and drinks companies 38

• Summary 38
• Introduction 39
• Market Leaders: Case studies 40
• Case study: Nestlé 40
• Case study: Unilever 46
• Case study: Groupe Danone 50
• Case study: PepsiCo 54
• Case study: Coca-Cola 56
• Conclusions 58

Chapter 3 Market leaders: Ingredients 62

• Summary 62
• Introduction 63
• Companies with diverse nutraceutical portfolios 64
• Case study: DSM Nutritionals 64
• Case study: Cognis 68
• Case study: Cargill Inc 70
• Case study: Ajinomoto 72
• Case study: Kerry Group 74
• Case study: Glanbia Foods 76
• Probiotics 79
• Case study: Chr. Hansen 79
• Case study: Danisco 82
• Prebiotics 85
• Case study: BENEO 85
• Fats and oils 87
• Case study: Ocean Nutrition Canada 88
• Agriculture 91
• Case study: Dow AgroSciences 92
• Case study: Monsanto 93
• Case study: DuPont 93
• Conclusions 94

Chapter 4 Market Leaders: Pharmaceutical companies 96

• Summary 96
• Introduction 97
• Market leaders: Case studies 99
• Case Study: Abbott Nutrition 99
• Case study: Bayer Consumer Care 101
• Case study: Pfizer 103
• Case study: GSK Consumer Healthcare 105
• Case study: McNeil Nutritionals 107
• Case study: Mead Johnson Nutritionals 108
• Discussion 109

Chapter 5 Developing new ingredients: Innovative start-up companies 112

• Summary 112
• Introduction 113
• Case study: Advana Science 115
• Case study: WellGen Inc 116
• Case study: InterMed Discovery 118
• Case study: Provexis 119
• Case study: Clasado Ltd 122
• Case study: Cambridge Theranostics Ltd 123
• Case Study: HerbalScience Group 125
• Business models 126
• Conclusions 130

Chapter 6 Market drivers and trends 132

• Summary 132
• Introduction 133
• Regulatory considerations 133
• Japan 134
• United States 135
• Europe 137
• Intellectual property 140
• Development costs 141
• Opportunities in the nutraceuticals market 142
• Opportunities for medical foods 144
• International emerging markets 146
• The science driving the future foods market 148
• Nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics 148
• Epigenetics 148
• Nanotechnology 149
• Conclusions 149

Chapter 7 Appendix 152

• Primary research methodology 152
• Acknowledgments 152
• Glossary 153
• Index 156
• Bibliography 158
• Endnotes 163

List of Figures

• Figure 1.1: Different types of medical food and their uses 22
• Figure 1.2: The health and nutrition sector 32
• Figure 1.3: Key US consumer health concerns, 2009 33
• Figure 1.4: The role of food and pharmaceuticals in the healthcare continuum 34
• Figure 1.5: End products for nutraceutical ingredients 35
• Figure 2.1: Danone’s sales figures by business line and sales region (2008) 50
• Figure 3.1: Technologies for nutraceutical product development at Kerry Group 75
• Figure 3.2: Defining Danisco’s Bioactives and Enabler ingredients 82
• Figure 5.1: InterMed Discovery’s active ingredient pipeline 118
• Figure 5.2: A comparison of research paradigms in the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries 127
• Figure 5.3: Examples of business models adopted by innovative nutraceutical companies 128
• Figure 6.1: Opportunities and threats for the nutraceuticals industry 133
• Figure 6.2: Types of EFSA health claims 138
• Figure 6.3: Key attributes for product success 143
• Figure 6.4: Opportunities for medical foods 145
• Figure 6.5: Growth in the number of potential consumers from developing and emerging countries: 2008-2018 147

List of Tables

• Table 1.1: Examples of nutraceuticals 23
• Table 1.2: Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids and their dietary sources 24
• Table 1.3: Examples of common antioxidants present in food 30
• Table 2.1: Leading food companies: revenues and product focus 39
• Table 2.2: Nestlé sales by product area (CHFm), 2008 40
• Table 2.3: Nestlé’s Branded Active Benefits 42
• Table 2.4: Examples of brands from Nestlé Nutrition 43
• Table 2.5: Functional ingredients included in Danone’s dairy products 51
• Table 3.6: Market leaders: Ingredients 63
• Table 3.7: Nutraceutical or personalized nutrition companies participated in by DSM Venturing 67
• Table 3.8: Examples of ingredients from Danisco 83
• Table 4.1: Market Leaders: Pharma 98
• Table 4.2: Leading nutraceutical products from Abbott Nutrition 100
• Table 4.3: Leading nutraceutical products from Bayer Consumer Care 102
• Table 4.4: Leading nutritional products from Pfizer 104
• Table 5.1: Innovative companies and start-ups in the nutraceutical sector 114
• Table 5.2: Examples of innovative companies exploring novel manufacturing methods 115
• Table 5.3: Products or projects in development at Provexis 120
• Table 6.1: Health claims meeting significant scientific agreement 137