EXCLUSIVE: Chromadex CEO Rings Nasdaq Closing Bell, Talks Walmart Product Launch

Chromadex Corp CDXC is participating in the Nasdaq’s closing bell ceremony on Thursday afternoon to celebrate its five-year anniversary of trading on the exchange.

Chromadex is a biosciences company focused largely on healthy aging. The company’s flagship ingredient Niagen is the active ingredient in its consumer product, Tru Niagen.

CEO Rob Fried told Benzinga this week that the company has come a very long way over the past five years in transitioning from a primarily business-to-business model as an ingredient supplier to a direct-to-consumer model.

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“Today, we are principally a consumer-facing operation where the bulk of our revenues come from consumer sales and increasingly retail and distribution relationships,” Fried told Benzinga.

Walmart Partnership: This month, Chromadex will begin selling Tru Niagen in 3,800 U.S. Walmart Inc WMT locations as part of a major distribution deal.

Chromadex also recently announced a deal with health care tech company Ro to supply Niagen as an ingredient for the company’s specialty formulated products.

Fried said it’s important for Chromadex to partner with retailers like Walmart to make Niagen available to as many global consumers as possible.

“We recognize that we need to have distribution platforms beyond ecommerce platforms, so the deal with Walmart is the first deal in the U.S. of that nature. We expect to take it slowly,” he said.

At the Benzinga Global Small Cap Conference in May, Fried and Chromadex CFO Kevin Farr said the company is approaching positive adjusted EBITDA, excluding legal expenses related to lawsuits to keep competitors from infringing on the company’s intellectual property.

“Obviously the ultimate goal is not adjusted EBITDA. It’s not even EBITDA. It’s net income, and we expect to get there too,” Fried said.

Chromadex As An Investment: Chromadex shares are up nearly 80% year-to-date in 2021, but Fried told Benzinga that he is a strong believer in the long-term outlook for the company. In fact, he recently reinforced that bullish stance by buying 10,000 shares of Chromadex stock.

“As I look across the company and the people and the processes and the progress and the partnerships, I realized that Chromadex has today in place the ingredients for being a very significant and long-lasting business. It had nothing to do with short-term news,” Fried said.

Photo courtesy of ChromaDex.