Mission/Vision Statement

Product Info

Management

Scientific Advisory Board

Industry Trends/Market View

Industry Trends/Market View

The supplement market has grown 35% annually to $16 billion since 1994. According to data from Information Resources, Inc., herbal dietary supplement US sales totaled $591 million in 2000, with single and multivitamins totaling $1.6 billion. The largest herbal supplement sales were Ginko biloba with $99 million in sales, followed by Echinacea and St. John's wort. Retail sales of mineral supplements in 2000 totaled $491 million, with Calcium making up $357 million followed of that total by sales of iron and zinc. The most affluent and sought-after segment of the market includes consumers aged 35 and older who account for 78% of regular vitamin and nutritional supplement sales. Americans are very familiar with vitamin and mineral supplements and use them frequently, with over 80% taking them at least occasionally as shown below.

Use of vitamin and mineral supplements by Americans. Source: ADA's Nutrition and You: Trends 2000 Survey.

Mineral supplements are presently manufactured as organic or inorganic salts of metals synthesized by the chemical industry. Because minerals are generally recovered by mining ores or as byproducts of other chemical processes, their conversion into mineral supplements cannot legally be described as "natural". Some metals such as selenium and chromium are also offered as a yeast complex to give a more organic nature to the products. The bioavailability, or amount of mineral actually absorbed into the body, of chemically derived minerals in supplements has been a long standing quality issue, and forms of the minerals that are shown to be more bioavailable often command a significant price advantage.

InB:Biotechnologies' ADVANTAGE

Nutritional supplements have become increasingly popular as the positive health benefits of diet and nutrition are publicized in scientific and mass media articles. This popular attention has also brought into scrutiny the traditional methods of manufacturing nutritional supplements, which sometimes involve little scientific research or chemical characterization of active ingredients. Herbs have been gathered as they grow in the wild, dried, and offered for sale. This activity has depleted wild stocks of some herbs, and concentrations of the active ingredients vary significantly depending on the time of year, soil conditions, genetic variability in the plants, and methods of treatment after harvest. The entry of major health care companies into this market is bringing important changes to the quality and consistency of nutritional supplements.

InB:Biotechnologies' approach to the development of nutritional supplements includes highly controlled cultivation conditions, well characterized bioavailability and chemical forms of the minerals in its plants maintained at consistent levels and quality standards. The Company is establishing the following characteristics for its botanical mineral supplement products:

• Batch to batch consistency;
• Precise and carefully controlled quantities of active ingredients;
• Standardized quality;
• Solid scientific basis for the benefits and
• Patented production and use methods.