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Contact: Lorena CarboniJob title: Senior Scientific Communications SpecialistCompany: Gnosis by LesaffreContact: l.carboni@gnosis.lesaffre.comVisit us: www.gnosisbylesaffre.com
1 How is the women’s health market changing, and how is your company innovating to support companies looking to fill market whitespace?
The rising need for women’s dietary supplements, mainly in prenatal, premenstrual, and perimenopause stages, drives segment growth. The vitamin product type segment dominated the market in 2021. Women of childbearing age are the largest consumers of multivitamins or mineral supplements. Moreover, the risk of developing chronic diseases is high among this age group, propelling segment growth. By exploring the biotransformation processes occurring within the body, Gnosis by Lesaffre works to identify actives that are linked to female fertility, pregnancy, and overall wellness, like the active folate Quatrefolic®.
2 What aspect of women’s health do your ingredient(s) address, and what type of scientific research supports their use?
Quatrefolic® is a source of folate, which plays an essential role in cell division and DNA synthesis and is involved in periods of rapid growth and development, such as pregnancy (in preventing neural tube defects in the fetus when taken before conception and during pregnancy) and infancy.
Folate contributes to many other functions in the body, creating healthy red blood cells, supporting the normal functioning of our brain and nervous system, working in the breaking down of homocysteine (a recognized risk factor for cardiovascular disease), and contributing to bone health and management of hot flashes in aging women. Folate's contribution to women’s health is stated by the EFSA claims approved on blood formation, homocysteine metabolism, energy-yielding metabolism, immune system function, blood vessel function, cell division, and maternal tissue growth during pregnancy.
3 How do you define your company’s point of differentiation and advantages in the market?
Gnosis by Lesaffre works daily to raise knowledge and awareness about the central importance of folate on a wide range of benefits, mainly spreading advantages of using active folate, like Quatrefolic®.
Quatrefolic® provides the active folate 5-MTHF, which unlike folic acid, does not require conversion by the enzymatic processes of the body. Taking Quatrefolic® can benefit everyone, including women with MTHFR enzyme polymorphism.
The glucosamine salt of 5-MTHF is the fourth-generation folate which, compared to the calcium salt, offers greater stability, higher water solubility, and flexibility in formulating multiple ingredients, thus ensuring better bioavailability.
4 What product development and go-to-market support do you offer your customers in this space?
Quatrefolic® Fine Powder offers a finer, narrower particle size distribution of the raw material. Novel delivery dosage forms like liquid, oil, and suspension forms have become an exciting area of innovation and opportunity, attracting the increasing interest of manufacturers and consumers.
When choosing supplements, nearly half (49%) of supplement users identified ease of swallowing as an important factor to consider, even more by women (54%). A newly published report by Fact.MR also states that traditional softgels are consolidated solid forms that are highly valued for their ease of ingestion (7% CAGR).
Considering the wide and differentiated potential of women’s health supplements, the greater versatility of Quatrefolic® Fine Powder offers a great solution to this hot-topic trend, but also as a starting ingredient for dosage forms stable over time without the risk of sedimentation:
Complex softgels – Mixing different vitamins and ingredients
Oral Spray – Providing great compliance with the consumers’ behavior
Liquid suspension form – Improving the customer’s experience and enlarging the product range.
