Niagen Bioscience is the brand new identify for ChromaDex, an organization which had its beginnings as a requirements testing service with a deal with chromatography. It constructed model recognition in that space and later as an analytical testing service, however the identify not displays the enterprise that it’s at this time, mentioned firm CEO Rob Fried.
ChromaDex will now seem as ‘NAGE’ at inventory market open on Wednesday.
“We expect at this time there’s just one sturdy, reliable model within the NAD [nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide] area, and that model is Niagen,” Fried mentioned in regards to the firm’s major ingredient. “And we wish to assist journalists and influencers and shoppers to have the ability to discern the great manufacturers from the not so good manufacturers, the trusted manufacturers from the not reliable manufacturers.”
In recent times, the corporate has branched into different areas of “vital alternatives” in not solely the dietary complement trade however within the pharmaceutical area, Fried mentioned. He added that as Niagen Bioscience, the corporate is healthier positioned to increase in these markets, constructing technique round complement Tru Niagen, its flagship product, in addition to NAD precursors.
Gross sales for Tru Niagen grew to $76.8 million in 2024, and $17.5 million of Niagen ingredient gross sales final 12 months have been from meals vitamin and complement corporations, based on ChromaDex investor relations.
A ‘miraculous’ molecule
The corporate’s success is linked to NAD, which exists in two types: NAD+ and NADH.
ChromaDex sells merchandise containing the ingredient Niagen (nicotinamide riboside), which has been proven to extend ranges of NAD+ within the physique. NAD+ is a coenzyme for redox reactions, which includes the switch of electrons between two species. The method is crucial to vitality metabolism. NAD+ is of course present in hint quantities in milk and different meals.
According to the National Institutes of Health, NAD+ can affect key mobile capabilities, equivalent to metabolic pathways, DNA restore, mobile senescence and immune cell operate—processes crucial for wholesome ageing. There’s a gradual decline in NAD+ ranges in tissues and cells which is linked to age-related situations.
Andrew Shao, PhD, senior vice chairman of worldwide regulatory and scientific affairs at ChromaDex, mentioned Niagen is backed by dozens of scientific research, lots of that are third-party funded. The corporate companions with the Mayo Clinic, Nationwide Institute on Getting old, and Harvard and Cambridge Universities to check Niagen.
ChromaDex can’t patent nicotinamide riboside as a result of it’s present in nature. Nonetheless, the corporate does have unique use of a patented crystal type of NR utilized in business dosages, Shao mentioned.
The corporate has mental property round NR, which capabilities as a precursor to NAD+. Precursors are compounds that take part in a chemical response that produces one other compound. The corporate additionally has mental property round nicotinic acid, a nutrient within the vitamin B advanced that the physique wants in small dosages to operate and keep wholesome.
Greater than dietary supplements
Via ChromaDex’s exterior analysis program, CERP, unbiased and third-party investigators request Niagen for his or her scientific and preclinical NAD+ analysis. Via this program, investigators have printed three scientific research on Parkinson’s, with a fourth Part III research that’s at the moment ongoing. This Part III research includes 400 sufferers, wherein half of them obtain one gram of Niagen per day and the opposite half a placebo for one 12 months.
The corporate mentioned that the therapeutic potential of Niagen, not less than from a pharmaceutical standpoint, exists in addressing neurodegenerative illnesses, and it’s the place ChromaDex sees the best promise. Impartial investigators have been learning Parkinson’s and Niagen since 2018.
“Vitality-demanding tissues just like the mind and the guts, the skeletal muscle, they’re all closely NAD dependent,” Shao mentioned.
The corporate additionally unveiled Niagen Plus, that includes the primary of its sort pharmaceutical grade IV Niagen final 12 months. It’s accessible completely at clinics throughout the U.S. with a prescription.
Niagen Plus targets an intravenous hydration remedy market valued at $2.32 billion globally and $1.15 billion in North America, based on the corporate.
“It’s solely now that we’ve gotten to a degree that we’re having primarily this popping out get together the place we are saying, ‘We expect we’ve arrived’,” Fried mentioned.
