Helios Wins IFT Innovation Award for NC-518®

SANTA FE, N.M.NC-518, a novel calcium for bone health, was recognized for its ability to benefit applications within the beverage, dairy and food fortification categories at this years Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo in New Orleans. Helios CORP and its distribution partner, Summit Resource Group, received the IFT 2011 Global "Top Innovation and Technology Award" at the opening ceremonies held June 12, for the ingredient, which may allow brand/end user to make stronger structure function claims on the label to reference the benefits of "improved bone health" and/or perhaps "increases bone density."

Thomas Chang, of Sunbio Corporation, the developer of the technology, accepted the award.

NC-518 was developed for the nutritional category and is backed by a 30-month open label study and a recently completed (December 2010) U.S.-based, four-month, phase 2, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, human clinical study. In clinical evaluation, NC-518 achieved an average bone density increase of 2.2 percent over a four-month time frame in the second clinical study

The starting raw material for NC-518 is oyster shell and the resulting functional ingredient is calcium carbonate.  Helios uses a patent-pending processing technology where raw materials spend six years in development of a laser micronization method applied with a continuous, electro-static. This technique creates a finished product where the trace mineral complex and zinc are fully utilized.