New AI tool connects science, traditional knowledge for nutra and pharma development
The new tool is a multi-layered AI platform that incorporates more than 3.5 million curated data points in biochemistry, botanicals and regulatory guidelines to develop differentiated products.
The platform will support several supplement portfolio launches in 2024-2025 in key markets, including the Philippines, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India, Saudi Arabia and the United States. It may also one day generate intellectual property for products developed with the help of the tool.
NutrifyGenie was created by Nutrify Today, a network of 10,000 nutrition professionals whose board members represent companies such as OmniActive Health Technologies, Fuji Chemicals Industries and nutraceutical company Cepham.
“The whole paradigm shifted for us now,” said Anand Swaroop, founder and president of Cepham and co-founder of Nutrify Today. “NutrifyGenie helped us to speed up the [innovation] process from two years to one to two months for some products.”
The library
Companies use NutrifyGenie’s library to search information from 10,000 ingredients and thousands of regulatory and intellectual property data from nearly a dozen countries. The database was developed by inputting information from numerous databases, such as PubMed, as well as from premiere biochemistry books.
From that knowledge, NutrifyGenie is then able to make connections. For example, it can map out everything that happens in the brain to determine the impact nutrition and trace minerals have on the organ, Swaroop said.
The AI platform is also instrumental in storing traditional knowledge that NutrifyGenie scientists collect from ancient texts written in India, Korea, China and even some from Mesoamerica.
“We're using AI tools and then large language models to look into what was written in those places, what plants people were using, including those used for remedies,” Swaroop explained. “Any civilization which is has lasted more than 2,000 years has written and unwritten pieces of traditional knowledge.”
The information that NutrifyGenie has gathered so far is just a “drop in the bucket,” he said.
GLP-1s
In modern times, NutrifyGenie is working to address the effects people have when they stop taking GLP-1 drugs.
The AI scientists used the tool to determine which metabolic pathways pharmaceutical companies were using to treat obesity and how natural products can be used to assist in the transition away from these drugs.
“We can bring in natural products to actually replace or enhance the presence of GLP-1 products,” Swaroop said. “For everybody who is getting off GLP-1 drugs, we can actually help them maintain their metabolism.”
What researchers are finding is that people who take a GLP-1 and quickly reduce their A1C, often rebound to their previous metabolic state once they get off the drug.
“What we have found based on data is that all GLP-1 drugs are addressing some kind of inflammation in the body,” Swaroop added. “So we are trying to figure out if the same GLP-1 mechanism that was kickstarted by a drug can be maintained if a person goes back to a natural lifestyle and starts using supplements to maintain that kind of base state they want to reach.”
