That’s not a slogan or hyperbole. It’s a file of motion that stretches from the earliest battles over client entry to pure well being merchandise to passage of the Dietary Complement Well being and Schooling Act of 1994 (DSHEA), consequential regulatory actions and landmark litigation.
NPA’s legacy issues as a result of in 2025, the trade once more confronted a convergence of threats that required greater than consensus-building or messaging alignment. It required management keen to soak up danger, expend valuable sources, and confront authorities actors straight. As soon as once more, NPA rose to the event.
I’d like to deal with a recurring narrative that there’s “no single voice” for the dietary complement trade. Sadly, this lamentation obscures the duty of commerce associations to additional the pursuits of the trade, even when it means making uncomfortable, high-stakes choices with unsure outcomes.
There’s a voice when it issues. It’s the group that exhibits up first, incurs dangers, perseveres by way of hardships and hits, and delivers significant outcomes. In 2025, that voice was the Pure Merchandise Affiliation.
Advocacy shouldn’t be measured by participation in video calls, alignment in press releases or elaborate in-person occasions on the seashore. It’s measured by outcomes — legislative defeats, regulatory reversals, court docket choices and financial reduction secured for corporations and customers alike.
State degree threats
Essentially the most aggressive and coordinated threats in 2025 emerged on the state degree. What as soon as appeared sporadic hardened right into a nationwide technique of age-restriction payments, ingredient bans, warning label mandates and state-specific compliance schemes designed to bypass FDA authority beneath DSHEA.
On this surroundings, management shouldn’t be theoretical. It’s private, public and, at instances, hostile.
In Massachusetts, NPA was the only national trade association directly attacked on the record by a state legislator whereas it was doing its job of defending the trade. That second shouldn’t be anecdotal however instructive. Legislators don’t assault organizations which might be absent or ineffective. The assault occurred exactly as a result of NPA was partaking lawmakers, difficult flawed assumptions, and exposing the shortage of proof behind proposed restrictions.
The expertise in Boston was emblematic of a broader actuality throughout the nation. In California, New Jersey, Maryland and a number of different states, NPA was usually the one group actively engaged early sufficient to matter, educating legislators, mobilizing retailers, activating grassroots networks, and dealing behind the scenes with governors’ places of work and committee management to cease dangerous payments earlier than they gained momentum.
State advocacy is resource-intensive, relationship-driven and unforgiving. It requires infrastructure that can’t be assembled in a single day. NPA’s means to defeat or stall a number of state proposals in 2025 was not unintentional. It was the product of many years of funding in grassroots capability, legislative credibility and institutional reminiscence.
The central coverage precept at stake in these state battles is federal supremacy. DSHEA established a nationwide framework exactly to forestall the kind of regulatory fragmentation now being pursued by state legislators. However the nationwide framework beneath DSHEA shouldn’t be invincible and can’t be taken without any consideration. It have to be defended repeatedly.
In 2025, NPA did that work not solely in state capitals, however in Washington, D.C.
The trade’s largest financial coverage win of the yr got here by way of tariff reduction efforts led by NPA. These efforts straight saved the trade billions of {dollars}, stabilizing provide chains and stopping further value burdens from being handed on to customers. This was not summary advocacy. It was materials reduction at a second of worldwide disruption.
Victory for NMN
Maybe probably the most defining regulatory battles of latest years have centered on ingredient standing and innovation. The NMN battle crystallized what regulatory uncertainty means in follow: a lack of confidence within the dietary complement class, removing of merchandise from e-commerce platforms, reluctance to innovate and make investments, and dangers and losses for accountable corporations.
Resolving the battle over the authorized standing of NMN was not a product of casual engagement or incremental stress. It required NPA to file a citizen petition, pursue a lawsuit towards FDA for the second time in 4 years, and maintain stress by way of all three branches of presidency.
This multi-year effort resulted in a positive end result, particularly an FDA reversal of its prior resolution that NMN is excluded from the definition of a dietary complement. Within the 26-page letter sent to NPA on Sept. 29, 2025, FDA offered larger readability relating to its interpretation of the drug preclusion clause in DSHEA.
FDA’s letter gives the trade a roadmap to amend (by way of laws) the drug preclusion clause, however with out our efforts, FDA wouldn’t have provided further context on the which means of the time period, “substantial medical investigation,” for instance. We might disagree with FDA’s authorized interpretations, however a minimum of its standpoint is now on the file.
NPA was additionally the group that formed a constructive end result for NAC, which was the topic of an NPA lawsuit filed against FDA 4 years in the past. In each circumstances (NMN and NAC), NPA spearheaded costly, time-consuming and dangerous actions. Many corporations and organizations benefited from this work, however few had been keen to fund or lead it.
These disputes had been structural case research in how regulatory ambiguity chills markets and the way readability can solely be achieved when a company is keen to problem regulators straight, with none predetermined assure of success.
In 2025, NPA additionally secured a victory by requesting that FDA train enforcement discretion relating to placement of the DSHEA disclaimer. NPA labored with the American Natural Merchandise Affiliation on this initiative, reinforcing that whereas NPA is fiercely unbiased it additionally values mutually useful partnerships.
FDA’s recent letter to the dietary supplement industry (relating to the DSHEA disclaimer) and its potential future regulatory modification ought to quell opportunistic litigation and defend accountable corporations from frivolous lawsuits.
Management
Institutionally, 2025 was additionally a yr of management reinforcement. The appointment of NOW CEO Jim Emme as Chairman of NPA’s Board of Administrators and the addition of trade journalist and lawyer Josh Lengthy (as VP of Communications and Regulatory affairs) strengthened NPA’s bench. NPA is extraordinarily grateful for the service of earlier NPA Chairman Mark LeDoux, who led the group in that position for a few years.
NPA’s management translated straight into execution. NPA hosted the biggest Fly-In Day the dietary complement trade has ever seen, with a whole bunch of congressional places of work visited throughout greater than 30 states. This was not symbolic however strategic. It strengthened the significance of federal supremacy over dietary dietary supplements, educated lawmakers, and put political weight behind the trade’s priorities.
Once more, outcomes matter. This degree of engagement doesn’t happen with out planning, credibility and relationships — all of which NPA has constructed over many years.
I can’t tolerate a story to persist that “everyone seems to be doing the identical work,” when the file clearly exhibits in any other case.
Silence has penalties. It allows free using, discourages funding and weakens collective motion. When corporations profit from regulatory certainty, tariff reduction, litigation victories and state-level defeats with out acknowledging or supporting the establishments that delivered these outcomes, the regulatory framework finally collapses.
The lesson of 2025 shouldn’t be delicate. Collective motion can’t survive on goodwill alone. Management requires honesty about who exhibits up, who leads and who delivers outcomes.
For too lengthy, the trade has allowed others to outline its story. In 2026, that should change. Dietary supplements usually are not a fringe or fly-by-night class. They’re a part of the day by day well being routine for many American households.
Public insurance policies in Washington, D.C., and throughout the U.S. won’t replicate that actuality until corporations invests within the associations driving efforts to guard the trade. With virtually 90 years of history, capped by a yr of consequential wins in 2025, NPA is in the perfect place to steer these efforts.
