Supplements Makers Create Alliance to Provide Seed Funding for Scientific Research

CHATSWORTH, CA—In a high-stakes effort likely to address the recent tide of negative publicity about the effectiveness of dietary supplements, 10 U.S. supplements manufacturers and raw materials suppliers announced in early October that they have joined forces to fund scientific research on their products.

Calling itself the Corporate Alliance for Integrative Medicine Inc., its focus is to be a multimillion dollar effort to provide the industry with the safety and efficacy studies it says it needs to prove its case to the often skeptical conventional medical community as well as to the often confrontational mainstream press. It’s been in existence for about a year, but members now have agreed to make the effort public, says Alliance VP Walt Jones, who also is president of the PurGar division of Natrol (NTOL), one of the Alliance’s founders.

Many physicians still don’t know enough about supplements and remain skeptical about recommending them to patients, says Jones.

Organized as a not-for-profit corporation, the alliance currently has received about $500,000, or $50,000 each from its member companies, to provide seed funding for university-based research programs to study the safety and efficacy of dietary supplements. The thinking is that the initial funding will generate enough preliminary results to attract the larger National Institutes of Health grants needed to do full-blown trials. The alliance will receive another $500,000 in 1999 and expects ultimately to disburse between $1 million and $3 million to fund trials, Jones says.

Jones says the alliance plans to work closely with industry trade associations such as the American Botanical Council and the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN). And CRN President John Cordaro believes the alliance is generally beneficial to the industry.

In addition to NTOL, founding members of the alliance are Long Beach, CA-based Botanicals International; Eugene, OR-based East Earth Herbs; Springville, UT-based Nature’s Way; Nu Skin Enterprises (NUS); Nutraceutical International (NUTR); Pure World/Madis Botanicals (PURW); Rexall Sundown (RXSD); Twinlab (TWLB); and Weider Nutrition International (WNI).

Jones says alliance members are in the process of determining how and at what financial level new members can join.