History
During the last 10 years, NIS Labs has worked with clients in the Natural Products Industry to provide research into structure and function of their products from a Human perspective via cell-based assays and clinical trials. The first few years involved developing and streamlining cell-based assays to work in the complex environment of natural products rather than the more narrow pharmaceutical environment.
Over the years, a number of these tests have become more and more routine. As such, a decision was made to move them from a research environment to a testing environment, making them more economically feasible for our clients and the industry in general. More importantly, this move makes these tests available not only for research purposes but also for use as Quality Assurance tools.
There are 12 of these assays in the pipeline at the moment and as they are validated for Testing purposes they will be offered as such. The first, and we believe the most relevant as a Marketing Claim Quality Assurance tool, is the Cell-based Antioxidant Test (CAP-e).
We have been asked “How do you use this as a marketing tool?” Our answer has been the snappy marketing phrase or tag line: “Antioxidants in your product can enter into and protect red blood cells.” In response we were asked if the term “Bioavailable” could be used. In its most general meaning – no. To address this issue we have introduced a Research Package to determine bioavailability, which in combination with the standard CAP-e test can be used in a Quality Assurance Program to support the marketing claim of “Bioavailable Antioxidants.”
During the last 10 years, NIS Labs has worked with clients in the Natural Products Industry to provide research into structure and function of their products from a Human perspective via cell-based assays and clinical trials. The first few years involved developing and streamlining cell-based assays to work in the complex environment of natural products rather than the more narrow pharmaceutical environment.
Over the years, a number of these tests have become more and more routine. As such, a decision was made to move them from a research environment to a testing environment, making them more economically feasible for our clients and the industry in general. More importantly, this move makes these tests available not only for research purposes but also for use as Quality Assurance tools.
There are 12 of these assays in the pipeline at the moment and as they are validated for Testing purposes they will be offered as such. The first, and we believe the most relevant as a Marketing Claim Quality Assurance tool, is the Cell-based Antioxidant Test (CAP-e).
We have been asked “How do you use this as a marketing tool?” Our answer has been the snappy marketing phrase or tag line: “Antioxidants in your product can enter into and protect red blood cells.” In response we were asked if the term “Bioavailable” could be used. In its most general meaning – no. To address this issue we have introduced a Research Package to determine bioavailability, which in combination with the standard CAP-e test can be used in a Quality Assurance Program to support the marketing claim of “Bioavailable Antioxidants.”
