ADVANCED DELIVERY & SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY
Absorption is where most supplements fail
The uncomfortable reality of conventional supplementation is that a large share of what a consumer swallows never reaches systemic circulation. Poorly water-soluble actives, pH-sensitive compounds, and molecules vulnerable to enzymatic breakdown routinely arrive in the intestine already degraded or in a form the epithelium cannot take up.
Formulation architecture compounds the problem. Binders, fillers, flow agents, and compression aids are chosen for manufacturability rather than performance, and they directly influence disintegration behaviour. A tablet that disintegrates slowly or incompletely delivers a fraction of its label claim, regardless of how well the raw material was sourced.
Getting an active across the gastrointestinal barrier is only the first hurdle. It then has to survive first-pass metabolism, remain in circulation long enough to matter, and reach the tissue where it acts. For oxidatively sensitive ingredients, the same vulnerabilities that limit absorption also drive potency loss on the shelf, which turns a formulation problem into a stability and shelf-life problem.
Lipid-based delivery addresses all three of these at once.
Discuss your delivery challenge
SECTION 01
Where absorption breaks down
Solubility ceiling
Lipophilic actives have limited dissolution in gastrointestinal fluid. What does not dissolve cannot be absorbed.
Disintegration drag
Excipient load, compression force, and coating choices govern how quickly a dose becomes available. Poor disintegration caps absorption before uptake is even in play.
Gastrointestinal degradation
Gastric acid, bile salts, and digestive enzymes deactivate sensitive molecules in transit. Peptides, probiotics, and polyphenols are particularly exposed.
Oxidative loss
Omega-3s, carotenoids, and many botanical actives oxidise during processing and storage. Potency at time of manufacture is not potency at time of consumption.
SECTION 02 — AI MEETS INGREDIENT INNOVATION
Machine-scale discovery, human-scale judgement
Computational discovery has changed the pace at which novel bioactives appear. Machine learning models now generate and rank candidate peptides, screen structure-activity relationships, and surface compounds that would not have emerged from conventional screening programmes within a commercially realistic timeframe.
What these systems do not do is tell you whether a candidate can be formulated, sourced at scale, defended in a regulatory dossier, or sold. That gap is where our team works.
We treat discovery output as a starting point rather than a conclusion. Candidates are assessed against the criteria that actually determine whether an ingredient reaches market: physicochemical behaviour under processing conditions, compatibility with intended dosage forms, supply chain viability, cost-in-use at effective dose, and regulatory standing in the target jurisdictions.
Bringing bioactive evaluation and commercialisation assessment into a single workflow removes the dependency on a scattered set of external specialists, each answering one part of the question. It shortens the path to a defensible shortlist of formulation-ready ingredients.
Candidate screening to formulation-ready shortlist
Reading the evidence properly
Not all supporting research carries the same weight, and the distinction is frequently blurred in ingredient marketing.
We structure study metadata so that evidentiary strength is visible rather than assumed. Each dataset is characterised by species context, administered dose and dosage range, treatment duration, and, where the work is preclinical, a human equivalent dose estimate derived through appropriate allometric scaling.
The practical effect is a clear separation between findings supported by human clinical work and findings that rest on animal-to-human extrapolation. That distinction matters when you are setting a label dose, drafting a substantiation file, or deciding whether an ingredient story will survive a regulatory review.
SECTION 03 — DIFFICULT INGREDIENTS
The ones nobody else wants to formulate
A specialist network built around hard actives
Most formulation briefs are straightforward. The interesting work sits with the actives that resist conventional handling: compounds that are fat-soluble and refuse to disperse in aqueous systems, materials with aggressive bitterness or sulphurous off-notes, ingredients that degrade above modest temperatures, and actives with narrow pH windows.
We maintain a working network of specialists built specifically around these problems. That network covers lipid-based encapsulation and manufacture of advanced delivery systems, including liposomes and lipid nanoparticles, for research, food, and pharmaceutical applications. These systems are engineered to raise bioavailability, protect the payload, direct delivery to the intended site, and moderate the tolerability profile of demanding actives.
The support runs from custom development through to scalable manufacture with full analytical control. Programmes can be structured as branded product, white label from an existing catalogue, or fully bespoke formulation.
Taste, sensory, and mouthfeel
Efficacy is irrelevant if the product is unpleasant enough that people stop taking it.
Our team works on sensory outcomes as a formulation objective rather than an afterthought: bitterness suppression, targeted blocking of specific tongue receptor pathways, aroma masking, and mouthfeel correction. Lipid encapsulation itself contributes here, since a physical barrier between the active and the taste receptor addresses the cause rather than covering it.
These approaches transfer across formats, including powders, liquid dispersions, and pastes.
SECTION 04 — LIPID-BASED DELIVERY SCIENCE
How these systems actually behave
Liposomal systems are vesicular structures formed by the self-assembly of phospholipids in aqueous media. Their performance is not fixed by the ingredient list alone. It emerges from a set of interdependent variables that have to be controlled together.
Liposomal encapsulation manufacturing — controlled assembly, characterisation, and scale-up
GOVERNING VARIABLES
Lipid composition and phase behaviour
Processing conditions, including temperature, energy input, and mixing regime
Environmental factors, including pH, ionic strength, and storage conditions
CRITICAL PERFORMANCE ATTRIBUTES
Particle size distribution and polydispersity index (PDI)
Encapsulation efficiency and payload retention over time
Dispersion stability across the intended shelf life
Structural consistency therefore depends as much on how a system is processed, handled, and scaled as on how it was designed. A formulation that performs at bench scale can fail on transfer if the process window has not been characterised. Our applied understanding of these systems covers how they assemble, how they behave, and how they respond under real manufacturing conditions, which is what makes controlled and reproducible production at commercial volume achievable.
Liposomes and nanostructured lipid carriers
Lipid-based formulations are used across nutritional applications because they materially improve the bioaccessibility and bioavailability of ingredients that are otherwise difficult to deliver.
Liposomes and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) shield nutritional actives from the harsh conditions of gastrointestinal transit and increase uptake at the intestinal wall. We also work with a broader set of bioavailability enhancers and with gastric protection strategies for pH-sensitive actives, and we design combinations of actives around a defined health objective rather than assembling ingredients in isolation.
SECTION 05 — FORMATS
Liquid and solid-state systems
Liposomal systems form in aqueous environments, but commercial products frequently need formats that go beyond a simple liquid dispersion.
Hydrated liposomal systems
Supplied for direct dispersion and integration into liquid formats and finished formulation lines.
Solid-state liposomal formats
Engineered for defined storage, transport, and downstream processing requirements. These are produced through controlled dehydration, typically spray drying or lyophilisation, with process parameters set to preserve vesicle structure and support reproducible reconstitution.
SECTION 06 — DEVELOPMENT SERVICES
What a development programme covers
Complete formulation design and screening
Formulation analytics and characterisation
Formulation stability assessment
Feasibility studies
Forced degradation studies
Taste optimisation
Trial batches and evaluation samples can be arranged at any stage.
SECTION 07 — WHO WE WORK WITH
Who we work with
Large food and medical nutrition manufacturers
Veterinary health product companies
Mid-sized food and medical nutrition businesses
Food technology start-ups
SECTION 08 — SUSTAINABILITY AND INNOVATION
Responsible production is now part of the brief
The supplement category has moved into a phase where innovation and environmental responsibility are evaluated together rather than traded off. Buyers increasingly ask not only whether a product works, but how it was made, what it consumed to get there, and what it leaves behind.
That shift creates room for companies willing to build both objectives into the same development programme. Lipid-based delivery contributes directly, because raising the absorbed fraction of an active means less material is required to achieve the same physiological effect. Lower input volumes reduce raw material draw, cut waste through the supply chain, and ease pressure on ingredients where wild harvest or agricultural land use is a genuine constraint.
Efficiency of delivery is, in this sense, a sustainability lever as much as a performance one.
SECTION 09 — PRIVATE LABEL CATALOGUE
Proven formulations, ready to launch
For brands that need speed rather than a bespoke development cycle, our private label catalogue holds market-tested liposomal formulations with completed stability data and established manufacturing routes. These are available for rapid commercial launch under your own brand.
Request the catalogue
We stay ahead of the science so you do not have to
Ingredient technology moves faster than most internal teams can track. New trademarked actives, revised clinical datasets, shifting regulatory positions, and emerging delivery platforms arrive continuously, and the cost of working from a two-year-old understanding is a product that launches already behind the category.
Our work is to hold that watching brief permanently. The deep research is done, maintained, and applied, so that when you arrive with a brief you are starting from the current state of the science rather than rebuilding it. The objective is straightforward: scientific and formulation solutions that create genuine value for the businesses we work with, the people who use their products, and the wider category.