Seven Smart Moves for Suppliers of Weight Control Ingredients

In today’s tough economy, many dietary supplement companies are downsizing or outsourcing. Yet, resource-strapped marketers need to keep the wheels of innovation moving to develop safe, effective products that pass regulatory muster. Weight control products are no exception. By providing key information in the right form, raw material suppliers can not only capture the attention of marketers, but help expedite the regulatory review process. Here’s how:

1. )     Use plain language. The ingredient information you provide is likely to travel from marketer to scientist to attorney and beyond. The staffers who previously translated the technical stuff for the right-brain folks are long gone. So, keep it simple. Write for your least technical audience. How? Use plain language. It will get your message across to more people in the shortest time possible. For more information, visit www.plainlanguage.gov.

2. )     Avoid the data dump. Sending bulky binders—or today’s electronic equivalent—packed with any and all ingredient information is sure to slow the review process. Worse, it can strain already tight resources. Weed out nice-to-know information, and send only the need-to-know, preferably in summary form. The reward: A regulatory review that’s both faster and less expensive.

3.)      Shine a spotlight on your marks. If you have a trademark or service mark that helps communicate the value of your ingredient, let marketers know as soon as possible. This is especially true when your licensing agreement requires the specific use of a trademark or other intellectual property on a product label. Your mark can play a key role in the overall appeal of a product label, but only when marketers know their options.

4. )     Serve up your patents on a silver platter. If your ingredient is protected by one or more patents or applications, go the extra mile and point marketers directly to the relevant claims that protect the ingredient’s use for weight control. With this information in hand, marketers can quickly provide a meaningful response when the regulatory team inquires.

5. )     Dazzle with robust research. While cell culture and animal studies offer insight into how your ingredient works, the real jewel for the regulatory team is your human research. What’s sure to impress? Studies with robust design—double-blind, controlled, randomized—with outcome measures similar to the proposed product claims such as weight loss, fat loss or appetite control. Your ingredient should also show significantly better results compared to a control or placebo. Statistically speaking, that means a 95-percent confidence level or a P value of 0.05.

6.)      Know the weight loss research to share. If your ingredient has been the subject of clinical research investigating its ability to promote weight loss, you’ll need to provide studies involving overweight subjects—rather than only obese subjects—to support weight loss claims. Overweight is defined as a body mass index between 25 to 29.9.

7. )     Craft a claim or two. Consider crafting a few weight control claims to suggest to marketers. After all, who knows your ingredient better than you? Be prepared, however, to support your claims with, you guessed it, robust research.