Top Astaxanthin Producers Turning to Pressure BioSciences to Increase Quality and Scale Production of World's Most Potent Antioxidant

Image provided by Unsplash

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

Astaxanthin, a carotenoid found in algae, shrimp and other marine life, is a potent antioxidant boasting 6,000 times the strength of vitamin C and 100 times the potency of vitamin E. This high potency has generated equally high demand and spawned a massive, rapidly growing market for astaxanthin. 

With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.3%, astaxanthin is projected to become a $770 million market in the next 3 years. The exciting growth opportunity has drawn many potential producers to the astaxanthin market, but important roadblocks still exist that prevent the market from reaching its full potential. 

The key roadblock to overcome: astaxanthin’s astonishingly low oral bioavailability. With so little of the antioxidant actually being absorbed by the body, producers often rely on making products with incredibly high doses in order to increase the amount being absorbed.  Such practice is expensive, wasteful, and time consuming to produce. 

Pressure BioSciences, Inc. PBIO, a leading developer of pressure-based technologies for the life sciences, nutraceuticals, and other fields , may have built the technology that the astaxanthin market desperately needs. The company’s patented Ultra Shear Technology™ (UST™) platform generates high quality, highly stable nanoemulsions of astaxanthin oil and water that could be the key to making this powerful  antioxidant significantly more bioavailable and, as a result, more affordable to produce (lower cost of production should mean lower cost to the consumer).

The Many Uses of the World’s Most Potent Antioxidant

As an antioxidant, astaxanthin boasts many of the same benefits that vitamin E, vitamin C, and other antioxidants offer. It supports the immune system, improves muscle endurance, protects against UV damage, strengthens the brain and heart, and much more. 

Beyond these general health benefits, research suggests that astaxanthin may even be able to play a role in treating more serious conditions like diabetes, cancer, and the cytokine storm, an inflammatory condition common in cancer patients - as well as COVID patients - in which the body’s immune system begins to damage its own cells and, if left untreated, can lead to organ failure and death. 

It’s this remarkable potential that has generated so much interest from researchers, producers and consumers alike. But because it’s an oil-soluble nutrient, it’s bioavailability is so low — no higher than 16% in its raw form — that unlocking the full potential of astaxanthin has been a difficult but urgent focus of research and development efforts across the global industry.

Astaxanthin Producers Grapple with Expensive, Inefficient Production Processes

With so much of the oil-soluble antioxidant going to waste as it’s excreted by the body unused, developing new and effective ways to make astaxanthin more soluble, together with consistent dosing for medical treatments and effective formulas for supplements and wellness products, has been both challenging and expensive. And unsuccessful - until now.

To make products with noticeable health benefits, manufacturers typically rely on using higher quantities of astaxanthin to counteract its low bioavailability. Fortunately, astaxanthin is safe even at supratherapeutic doses — doses higher than needed to get the health benefits of the nutrient.

Even so, challenges still persist outside of the oral supplement space. For infused foods, beverages or topical creams, developing an astaxanthin formula that includes high enough quantities of the powerful antioxidant to provide the advertised health benefits while avoiding the product separation and poor bioavailability that inevitably occurs in standard oil emulsions, has been all but impossible. 

Pressure BioSciences’ Proprietary UST Processing Platform May Be the Key to Unlock that Potential

Pressure BioSciences’ patented, pressure-based UST platform has recently attracted some of astaxanthin’s top worldwide producers as a potential breakthrough in the manufacturing of supplements and other wellness products with the antioxidant.

UST technology uses a combination of ultra high pressure and its patented nanogap shearing valve to break down oil containing astaxanthin into nanosized oil droplets that are so small, they behave like molecules instead of droplets. 

This change in behavior means that the nanoemulsion produced by the UST platform won’t separate into its component ingredients after settling; that is, the oil droplets won’t rejoin into larger drops. As a result, nanoemulsions of astaxanthin effectively become water soluble, rendering it significantly more bioavailable than it is in its original oil-soluble form. 

The increased bioavailability paired with the long shelf stability resulting from the fact that the nanoemulsion won’t separate after settling is what makes the technology so attractive to astaxanthin producers.  And because the UST platform has already received six issued patents, the only place that manufacturers can get a licence to use UST is to Pressure BioSciences, Inc.

With the UST platform, it may finally be possible to manufacture supplements and other infused products with lower quantities of astaxanthin while still boasting improved health benefits. The long shelf life also makes it more practical to scale manufacturing and distribute astaxanthin products around the world without worrying about product degradation during shipping. 

In short, the new UST technology would offer more affordable and more effective astaxanthin products that lower the cost of manufacturing for producers and improve the benefits of those same products to consumers, perhaps at a lower retail price. So with UST, both manufacturers and consumers could win.  What a novel - but exciting - thought!

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.