BlueOcean launches consumer brand to boost visibility of extended release technology, omega-3 shrimp oil

30-Aug-2015 - Last updated on 23-Oct-2023 at 10:37 GMT

BlueOcean extracts omega-3 oils from several species of cold water shrimp. Image © iStockPhoto / sugar0607

BlueOcean Nutrasciences has taken the direct-to-consumer route with an extended release, tablet form of omega-3 fish oil. The company intends to boost the viability of that technology in its own right as well as to use the launch to boost the visibility of its high astaxanthin omega-3 shrimp oil.

The new product, called Pure Polar XR and which launched on the company’s website on Friday, uses technology developed by CMAX Technologies for an extended release tablet. BlueOcean also has available its shrimp oil packaged into gel caps and has plans to use the extended release technology on this ingredient stream in the future.

DSM as model

BlueOcean, based in Toronto, has been working on a number of different product ideas and raw material streams, all centered in the past several years on omega-3 extraction. As a way to get closer to a revenue positive situation, and to help get the word out more rapidly about what the company considers to be a game changing pairing of ingredient and delivery technology, the company chose to launch a consumer brand. It’s a path blazed by other ingredient suppliers, most notably DSM with its iHeart and iHealth brands.

“DSM is kind of the model we have looked to,” Randy Uens, VP of global sales, told NutraIngredients-USA.

Earlier this year BlueOcean entered into a joint venture with CMAX to develop an extended release version of its various potential omega-3 products. It’s a technology that CMAX has been working on for a number of years, Uens said.

“CMAX has been specializing in reformulating existing pharmaceuticals. They would help a company that might be approaching a patent cliff to reformulate with an extended release product and extend the patent life that way. We approached them to apply the technology to omega-3s, because no one had really done that before. We went out and did it first with traditional fish oil,” Uens said.

Joint ventures to speed development

BlueOcean had its start in developing an algae production technology. More recently the company has licensed the extraction technology of krill oil supplier Neptune and has been working to apply it to extracting omega-3 oils from several species of cold water shrimp. BlueOcean recently brought a joint venture for the shrimp oil completely within house when it bought out for a nominal amount partner Quinlan Brothers, a fishing company that harvests cold water shrimp off of eastern Canada.

As a startup, BlueOcean has entered into several joint ventures and licensing deals to speed is development curve. Sometimes those agreements can benefit from modification along the way, and the company is sensitive to how it looks in industry when the news of the end of a joint venture leaks out.

“When you enter into these joint ventures and you are publicly traded you do a press release when they end and it can end up being looked at as something negative,” Uens said. “We are still working with Quinlan Brothers. Now we have a source in North America that is MSC certified (as sustainable) and we have another feedstock in Southeast Asia and that species has characteristics that are very similar to our cold water source. The harvesting times for the two stocks are different so it takes the seasonality out of the equation.”