Last week’s top headlines included iHerb acquiring Vitacost.com, Kirin eyeing cellular senescence opportunities and a European analysis that raised quality concerns about lavender-containing dietary/food supplements on the global market.
iHerb acquires Vitacost to accelerate U.S. market presence
Digital health and wellness retailer iHerb Holdings, LLC, has announced the acquisition of Vitacost.com, Inc. from The Kroger Co. to accelerate iHerb’s scale in the U.S. market.
“This is an exciting and highly complementary acquisition for iHerb,” said Emun Zabihi, chief executive officer of iHerb, in a press release. “Vitacost has a loyal customer base and deep assortment of products that aligns closely with our mission to make health and wellness accessible to all.
“This acquisition immediately expands our scale in the U.S., strengthens our relationships with key brands and adds a largely incremental customer base to iHerb’s platform. It also demonstrates our ability to grow through strategic acquisitions that complement our nearly 30-year history of organic growth.”
The deal gives iHerb immediate access to Vitacost’s loyal and largely incremental U.S. customer base and establishes the combined entity as a top online destination for health, nutrition and wellness products.
The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Kirin eyes cellular senescence as part of R&D focus
Kirin Group is gearing up research and development efforts targeting factors of aging, including cellular senescence and chronic inflammation. It has identified Agrimonia pilosa—a perennial plant of the rose family that grows wild in mountainous and wooded areas and is used as a folk remedy—as a candidate for targeting cellular senescence.
The company stated that it first discovered the plant’s ability to remove senescent cells in 2020 and that it was selected from approximately 4,000 materials as an ingredient to support brain function.
Commonly known in Japan as “Kinmizuhiki”, Kirin said that the plant was selected from approximately 4,000 materials as an ingredient for supporting brain function.
The company said it first discovered the plant’s ability to remove senescent cells in 2020.
A clinical trial conducted on 110 middle-aged Japanese reported that supplementation with Agrimonia pilosa Ledeb. extract could reduce senescent immune cells.
Preliminary data from the trial funded by FANCL were published in Nutrients last February.
Analysis highlights quality issues with lavender products
Over 60% of products containing lavender contained less or none of the three main marker compounds for lavender, says a recent analysis of 73 herbal medicinal products and dietary/food supplements on the global market.
Additional product testing revealed that under a third of the products (seven soft gels, 10 hard shells and five tablets/caplets) failed to disintegrate, reported Dr. Banaz Jalil and Professor Michael Heinrich from the University College London (UCL) School of Pharmacy in the European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
“This is the first study looking into the dosage form performance (pharmaceutical quality) of HMPs [herbal medicinal products] and DSs [dietary supplements] available on the global market,” they wrote. “It will improve the understanding of the effects and importance of these HMPs or DSs formulations and research on the efficacy and bioavailability of HMPs or DSs in animal or human trials.
“The study highlights the need for quality assurance beyond defining the chemical composition (e.g., in a pharmacopoeia) and the urgent need for better quality assurance with HMPs and DSs.”
