07.01.01
Martek: DHA Has Come A Long Way Baby
Martek Biosciences Corporation, Columbia, MD, was founded in 1985 by a group of phycologists (scientists who study algae) that were working for Martin Marietta, an aerospace company, researching algae as a renewable resource for space. When the opportunity arose the scientists developing the technology bought it from Martin Marietta and started Martek, whose mission ever since has been researching and creating high value products from algae, according to Angela Tsetsis, director of sales and marketing, “We use algae for numerous applications including the nutritional industry, pharmaceutical research and discovery and also for diagnostic purposes where algae’s natural fluorescent pigments are used as markers, like a dye in a diagnostic test.”
Martek’s docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) product, which is its main nutritional product, has been researched at the company for a dozen years—almost the whole life of the company. Ms. Tsetsis discussed the actual discovery of the DHA. “We were actually looking at EPA for cardiovascular benefits because back in the 1980s, everyone was talking about fish oils and heart disease,” she said. “In the process we found an algae that makes a lot of DHA and our research discovered that breast milk had ahigh level of DHA in it.”
The correlation between DHA and breast milk started Martek down the path of looking more closely at infant nutrition and in the process discovering that infant formula didn’t contain DHA. Through the years Martek has realized the huge role that DHA plays in infant brain and eye development and has been actively pursing the market.
The company’s Neuromins® DHA was the subject of astudy completed last year. The study, which was published in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology in March of 2000, examined babies that were being fed formula supplemented with DHA and arachadonic acid (AA) compared to babies fed standard formula without DHA or AA. Those babies who were fed the supplemented formula exhibited far-advanced mental development.
Additional research at Baylor University was recently presented at the Society for Pediatric Research Meeting; the data looked at mothers who breastfed their babies and took the Neuromins DHA product or a placebo. The DHA supplement was taken during the first four months of breastfeeding. When measuring the babies at two and a half years, the babies whose mothers took the DHA had far advanced psychomotor skills than those whose mothers who took a placebo. Ms. Tsetsis commented, “We are excited about the opportunities presented by this research. It shows the importance of having the right nutrients while breastfeeding.”
In terms of current regulations, Ms. Tsetsis said, “We just received a favorable review from FDA of our submission for generally recognized as safe (GRAS) status for our DHA and AA for use in infant formula. This is very significant because we have been marketing DHA and AA for use in supplements for adults and children all along in the U.S. Martek’s primary goal from the beginning was to provide better nutrition for infants around the world and to be able to do so in our home country is very exciting.”
Discussing the state of the industry, Ms. Tsetsis said, “This is a challenging time in the supplements industry. The opportunity seen several years ago brought in many entrepreneurs with a lot of spirit. Spirit is good to have, but the challenge now is to make sure that the products with science behind them are the ones that are successful.”—R.M.
Martek Biosciences
6480 Dobbin Road
Columbia, MD 21045
Telephone: 800-OK-BRAIN
Fax: 410-740-2985
Website: www.martekbio.com
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