ChromaDex, based in Irvine, CA, has signed a distribution agreement with IsoLife bv, based in Wageningen, Netherlands to distribute that company’s isotope-labeled products which can be used as traces and internal standards for for food & beverage, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, cosmeceutical and environmental sciences research.
"The IsoLife agreement will add to ChromaDex's comprehensive and growing catalog, which contains more than 3,000 phytochemicals and 500 botanical reference materials," said Frank Jaksch , CEO and co-founder of ChromaDex. "By adding the IsoLife stable isotope materials to our portfolio, we continue our commitment to providing access to key materials to the research community.”
Consulting acquisition
The announcement is the latest step in ChromaDex’s program of capability enhancement via acquisition, partnerships and distribution deals. Following a management shakeup in the first half of 2012 that saw chief executive Jeffrey Himmel and chief operating Debra Heim resign after joining the firm only a few months before, Chromadex has repeatedly been in the news with the announcement of a variety of deals.
Most recently, ChromaDex announced the Spherix Consulting, a deal that broke in early December.
ChromaDex provides proprietary ingredients to the dietary supplement, food & beverage, animal health, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. The company also offers testing services and manufactures a branded, bioidentical form of pterostilbene, called pTeroPure, that it markets in a line of supplements called BluScience. With Spherix, the company added scientific and regulatory consulting to its suite of services and products.
“It’s very complimentary to the services that we offer right now. We don’t do what Spherix Consulting does. So there is no real crossover between the two businesses,” Jaksch said at the time. “Spherix does mainly regulatory-oriented consulting. They serve the same markets that we do.”
Testing capabilities expand
Prior to that, the company announced a deal that significantly expanded the company’s testing capabilities. In late September 2012, ChromaDex announced a partnership with testing equipment manufacturer Phenomenex.
Phenomenex maintains a full-service analytical support laboratory, staffed with application scientists who specialize in method development and customized solutions. The deal was meant to help ChromaDex optimize its reference standards, including working with a variety of sample matrices that in many cases includes the use of Phenomenex's core-shell particle technology and Kinetex® columns.
ChromaDex also announced in late October that it will develop create single laboratory validated methods for the quantitative determination of total silymarin content of milk thistle and of total curcuminoid content in turmeric under a government contract.