The listing, which has been a longtime goal of the company, serves as further validation of the company’s performance and strategic direction, said founder and CEO Frank Jaksch. Listing on the higher profile, more prestigious exchange means a company has ‘arrived,’ so to speak. ChromaDex’s stock was traded over the counter up to now.
“We started on this path about a year ago in terms of getting all the listing requirements in order,” Jaksch told NutraIngredients-USA. “There are a number of minimum requirements, things like shareholder equity and market capitalization. We are significantly above those minimums.
“It says a lot about the progress ChromaDex has made since we set out on the journey to become a public company. The listing becomes a more substantial validation of what we have accomplished,” he said.
Jaksch said the listing will give the company greater visibility in the financial community and open doors to participate in investor conferences and will boost the liquidity of the stock.
Strategic move toward ingredients
ChromaDex, which started in business as an analytical laboratory, has branched out in recent years to license and develop a number of ingredients, including Niagen, its proprietary form of nicotinamide riboside, a form of vitamin B3 that in research has shown promising health benefits, including in the area of mitochondrial health and in neuroprotection and the amelioration of neurodegenerative processes. The strong suite of research backing the ingredient has enabled ChromaDex to enter into a number of high profile product formulation deals on the ingredient, including a recent one with CPG powerhouse Procter & Gamble. Ingredient sales have risen by as much as 97% in recent quarters, the company has reported.
ChromaDex continues to work on the scientific underpinning of Niagen, Jaskch said. The company recently announced a study that will look at the ingredient’s affects on the brains of college football players who are subjected to repeated blows to the head on the field.
ChromaDex’s other ingredients include pTeroPure, a nature-identical form of pterostilbene, and PureEnergy, a pTeroPure/caffeine co-crystal ingredient suitable for sports nutrition formulation. And the company has continued its path toward becoming a supplier of high-tech ingredients by leveraging its extensive library of natural ingredients via a deal with the Brazilian Biosciences National Laboratory (LNBio). The goal will be to develop new patentable entities, Jaksch said.