One of the biggest transformations, said Founder and Managing Director Blair Vega Norfolk, was how cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) platforms like JD Health and Tmall are focusing more on engaging healthcare professionals, instead of simply celebrities or online influencers, when promoting health products.
This increasing focus on healthcare professionals aligns with Biome Australia’s practitioner-only approach.
In the meantime, the company has also built up its brand reputation and consumer base in its domestic Australian market. In fact, the brand is said to have surpassed some popular retail brands in pharmacies to become the number one brand in terms of volume.
In Australia, about 30,000 to 40,000 health professionals are already on board in recommending Biome Australia’s probiotics.
With a strong foundation at home and an increasingly healthcare professional-focused CBEC sector in China, Norfolk believes the company is now in a position to consider a potential China market entry.
“For so long, China has been this big celebrity-driven market and there have been big demand spikes that come on and off,” said Norfolk at the recent Healthplex Expo 2026 held in Shanghai from June 15 to 17. “However, this market in probiotics is steadier because of its growing scientific evidence and the way the CBEC companies are evolving, I think they are creating new opportunities for more premium brands, more high-quality, more evidence-based brands to be able to support Chinese consumers.”
Aside from CBECs, the company has also received interest from distributors, raw material suppliers and manufacturers keen on distributing the products.
“To be clear, we have not made a decision to go into China. However, there is a lot of interest from the major CBEC and trade partner companies, because, as you know, they are always interested in the brands that Australians use. And now we’re one of the leading brands used and preferred by Australians,” he said.
Transformation in China’s probiotic market
Another major transformation in the Chinese probiotic market is a greater awareness of strain specificity and health benefits beyond gut health.
“During my first time in Shanghai, about seven or eight years ago, there were no mentions of strain specificity or clinical trials when I met with some of the probiotic manufacturers. The discussion was just on gut health,” Norfolk said. “These days, the Chinese consumers are learning so much faster than anyone else in the world with all these different digital platforms. They are hungry for information, and the rate of probiotics adoption is so much faster here.”
Against this backdrop, the company sees opportunities in introducing its condition-specific and strain-specific probiotics to the Chinese market.
Working with suppliers such as AB-Biotics, Probi and Probiotical, the company has developed 15 SKUs so far under the brand Activated Probiotics. Its probiotics apply to issues across immunity, iron absorption, osteopenia, osteoporosis, exercise recovery, acne, dyspepsia and more.
“The problem with multi-strain, high-dose, generic probiotics is that all they are doing is they are like a multivitamin. They are not really doing anything specific, and they might not even be doing anything,” he said.
These products, he said, could serve as specific tools that healthcare practitioners to use to help their patients.
“Each of these condition-specific probiotic formulations is like a new item in the toolkit and we are enabling doctors to be more effective for their patients. These are not just a probiotic product for sale, which is why we need to be careful in managing the brand such that it does not become another heavily discounted item that platforms use to compete for sale,” he said.
North America expansion
Outside of Asia-Pacific, Biome Australia is already present in Canada with doctors, naturopaths, behind-the-counter in pharmacies and health food stores. It is now assessing market opportunities down south in America.
Metagenics’ retreat from the practitioner-only health supplements category to focus on direct-to-consumer retail in the US after 2023 has created what Norfolk said was “a massive gap in the US practitioner market.” This also means opportunities for practitioner-only brands like Activated Probiotics to set foot in the US.
“Doctors and naturopaths have a sense of ownership or entitlement around professional brands or practitioner brands. They tend to be less supportive of brands that are accessible to the public on Amazon, supermarkets or grocery stores,” he told NI. “There are about 150,000 integrative doctors in North America that prescribe probiotics to patients, which means it is the biggest market for a practitioner brand like Activated Probiotics, and since we are now one of the most trusted brands, that has supported the decision to launch into the Canadian market.”
New strains and products
On new product development, the company has lodged patents and is conducting human clinical trials on a new strain known as Lactobacillus plantarum BMB18.
This strain, Norfolk said, is planned to be used in 10 of its products as a “power strain”, given the company’s IP ownership. Clinical studies on its effects for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and mental health are underway.
“We are doing a little work on exploring different mechanistic targets for future development of our strain BMB18 with clinical trials now underway to understand better if the strain could be used for certain health targets or conditions not currently supported effectively by other interventions in areas where novel, high-value IP opportunities exist. This is a big product development project that we are running to support Biome and Activated Probiotics into the future,” he said.
