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Contact: Dominik Mattern Job title: Vice President Marketing Company: Kappa Bioscience Contact: info@kappabio.com Visit us: www.kappabio.com
1How do you see the post-COVID immune health market changing and how is your company innovating to fit in that vision?
The pandemic has created flourishing demand for self-care products. Deficiencies in certain vitamins are shown to be potential risk factors for worse outcomes of COVID-19. So it is not surprising that COVID revitalized interest in familiar single letter vitamins, such as K. Perhaps surprising and under the radar, deficiency in vitamin K2 may play an important role in aggravating symptoms of COVID-19. We have shown that vitamin D and K2 are the Perfect Pair for bone and vascular health, but their synergies also affect our immune and respiratory health. Kappa Bioscience has initiated an international research program investigating the potential roles of vitamin K2 and the benefits of K2 supplementation in COVID-19 patients. The first-ever clinical trial using our K2VITAL® vitamin K2 MK-7 in COVID-19 patients has begun – results are expected later this year.1
2What ingredients do you offer that support immune health?
Kappa Bioscience offers vitamins K2 MK-7 and D3, as well as calcium and magnesium ingredients. However, the focus for us is rather on the final product that brands can successfully sell. To support our customers’ product development, we collaborate with about 40 respected ingredient suppliers and various CMOs. This enables Kappa to supply more than ingredients. Our Formulation LookBook contains over 150+ product concepts, ranging from traditional capsules or tablets, to taste-driven delivery forms like gummies or drops – and even chocolates!
In many cases a stable, microencapsulated K2 MK-7, known as K2VITAL® DELTA, is needed for such challenging product blends. It allows the combination of K2 with many ingredients to form synergies. K2 and D3 of course, as the Perfect Pair. With calcium, with magnesium. Or with omega-3s. Astaxanthin. Vitamin C. Zinc. Multivitamins. Probiotics... The combinations are infinite!
3How do you define your company’s point of differentiation and advantages in the market?
Kappa Bioscience is a trusted partner, delivering superior quality health solutions and thought leadership in the nutraceuticals and healthcare industries. We will continue to research clinically and technologically, to set the benchmark for K2 in the future with our exceptionally pure vitamin K2 from Norway.
Not only are we K2 experts, but we have developed tight collaboration with many like-minded ingredient providers and contract manufacturers. Together, we offer our customers turnkey solutions, consultancy, and marketing support: either ready concepts, or custom formulations according to their needs and wishes. We support their R&D teams through our scientific expertise and thought leadership, research updates, and syntheses, insights on local regulatory requirements. Product development is made easy through our 150+ concepts, compiled in the LookBook, and the relations we have with many key actors of our industry. We also focus on cooperation with respected manufacturers of co-ingredients. Together we achieve the most to serve the consumer with the best possible solutions.
4Do your ingredients carry studies that support specific structure or function claims?
There are more than a dozen structure-function claims existing for K2. Vitamin K2 has mostly been studied for its implications in bone and vascular health. A few papers have also focused on the role vitamin K plays against inflammation and oxidative stress. Sports nutrition is also a key area for us, and some of our research projects will begin this summer. We are investing more in clinical research every year. Currently, we are focusing on the synergy of K2VITAL® with vitamin D3. Applications we are researching cover immune, bone, heart, gut, and muscle health.
1. https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04770740?term=NCT04770740
Contact: Chyn Boon Wong, Ph.D Job title: Research Associate Company: Morinaga Milk Industry Contact: interntl@morinagamilk.co.jp Visit us: www.morinagamilk-ingredients.com
As the impact of COVID-19 continues to linger, consumers have shifted their interest to preventive approaches to maintain their immune health. There has been an exponential growth in the immunity-enhancing food, drink, and supplement product launched in the last five years, with highest growth in Europe (41%), followed by the APAC region (34%) [Mintel]. Consumers are becoming more aware of how gut health can influence overall health. Their usage towards probiotics continue to increase and they are demanding more science-backed products in new innovative formats. As such, Morinaga Milk has developed a well-researched immune-supporting paraprobiotic strain that has practical advantages for various innovative F&B applications. The pandemic has also driven an increase in attention for natural, human-compatible probiotics. Consumers are more aware of the origin of probiotic ingredients. As such, our human-residential bifidobacteria (HRB) probiotic strain is one such ingredient that has ecological advantages with clinically proven effects on gut and immune health.
Morinaga Milk offers an HRB probiotic strain named Bifidobacterium longum BB536 and a newly established paraprobiotic strain named LAC-Shield (heat-killed L. paracasei MCC1849). BB536 exerts an indirect immunomodulatory effect. It promotes a healthy gut and supports immune health. LAC-Shield exerts a more direct effect on the immune system via the bacterial cell component of the specific inactivated probiotic strain.
Consumers are more and more seeking active ingredients that they recognize and trust. As their interest in the origin and source of probiotic ingredients continue to be heightened, our HRB probiotic strain that emphasizes naturalness could be a game-changing solution. The global pandemic has also incrementally accelerated interest in daily food and drinks that offer immune-supporting benefits. Stability is key in developing an innovative probiotic application. Our HRB probiotic strain B. longum BB536 is one science-backed ingredient that has an excellent stability profile, making it ready to be incorporated into food supplement applications. However, there are still challenges of adding probiotics to unconventional products that have high water activity or with a high-temperature manufacturing process. LAC-Shield is one science-backed ingredient that can tackle these challenges without compromise accessibility or flavor. Since it is a heat-killed probiotic strain, it does not have any stability issues of traditional probiotics. It can be added into a wide range of food and beverage applications.
A clinical study involves seniors aged >65 years who received influenza vaccination at Week 3 and continuously consumed BB536 or placebo up to 14 weeks showed that seniors who ingested BB536 had better immunity and contacted lesser cases of influenza infection (Namba et al., 2010. Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry).
In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, intake of heat-killed MCC1849-containing jelly improved responsiveness of vaccinations in super-elderly people as compared with the placebo group (Maruyama et al., Int J Food Sci Nutr. (2016)). Another randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind comparison study, including healthy young adults, reported that heat-killed MCC1849 was effective in preventing common colds (Murata et al., Beneficial Microbes. (2018)).