Sami Labs, a leading global innovator and market pioneer in phyto nutrients, standardized herbal extracts and functional foods is celebrating its Silver Jubilee year this year. Armed with nearly 80 global patents, the company now produces many a novel offering including CoQ Energizer, Omega Bioplus and Toxiflush among others. Early this month, the company launched the total vegetarian lycopene wellness pill sans animal content.The company is alo participating in the 8th Nutra India Summit, being held in Mumbai from March 13 to 16.
In an e-mail interaction Dr. Muhammed Majeed, founder and managing director, Sami Labs provides an insight into the company's growth plans and the challenges it faces to Nandita Vijay. Excerpts:
How would you describe the current Indian scenario for nutraceutical and health ingredients?
As Indians are becoming more conscious about their health and how they look and feel, the market for dietary supplements, sports nutrition products and weight loss products broadly clubbed under nutraceutical is beginning to pick up speed. The nutraceutical market has been growing at a compound annual growth rate of 20 per cent for the last three years. Along with the growing health care industry in India there is an emerging trend for fast moving health care goods (FMHG) in India worldwide known as nutraceuticals, which are by definition, ingredients for human health benefits beyond basic nutrition.
The nutraceutical market in India is estimated to grow to $2731 million in 2016 at a CAGR of 13 per cent. Functional foods will be the quickest growing category till 2015 followed by dietary supplements. However dietary supplements, specifically herbal and dietetic supplements will form the greatest opportunity areas for nutraceutical manufacturers, driven by growing demand from an evolving consumer base.
What are the visible trends in this space?
The Indian nutraceutical market is dominated by pharmaceutical and Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) giants. While dietary supplements such as Vitamin and mineral supplements have been captured by pharmaceutical companies , functional food and beverages are now being brought to the market by FMCG companies.
With increasing sophistication among nutraceutical companies, the consumer demand for products with specific health benefits has been on the rise. Nutraceutical products have now been cordoned into various segments based on the health benefits. These sectors are heart health, eye health etc.
What are the challenges you are facing? In terms of regulations what do you think needs to be addressed?
The main challenge that we face is the depleting raw material sources.
The statutory body vested with the powers to issue licenses to our industry is FSSI. This Department is severely under- staffed. Besides, it has come up with an exorbitant license fee of Rs.25,000.00 per product, putting a big burden on the industry.
As far as the multi- level marketing is concerned, the country as a whole do not have a proper policy. This also needs to be addressed on a high priority basis in order to protect companies like Sami Direct.
Could you give us a snap shot of Sami Labs?
Sami Labs is a leading global innovator and market pioneer in phyto nutrients, standardized herbal extracts and functional foods. We have a formidable market presence and recognition in key nutraceutical markets like USA, Japan and Europe with leading wellness and life science companies. With its diverse and growing intellectual property portfolio and a robust pipeline of new products, we are working to harness traditional knowledge of medicine and herbs into modern offerings scientifically validated for safety and efficacy.
What sets Sami Labs apart is that it has been a constant and strong advocate of quality, cutting edge research, science and clinical studies in its commitment to provide alternative and complimentary natural products for human nutrition and well being. Therapeutically the focus areas for Sami have been anti oxidants, cardio vascular adjunctives, liver support, blood sugar management products, anti obesity, oncological adjunctives etc.
After establishing successful market presence in developed international markets, we in the last couple of years have strategized to make an aggressive entry into the domestic market to target the health conscious Indian consumer through a direct selling company, Sami Direct.
Since 2010, Sami Direct brings an entire range of nutraceutical and cosmeceutical products with therapeutic benefits. Our proprietary knowledge developed in the last 25 years in the form of various phyto nutrients and functional foods, are formulated into a vast range of tablets, capsules, protein powders, creams and lotions. The positive response received not only demonstrates a vibrant growing market, but also the need for scientifically well validated supplements and cosmetics.
Which are the fastest growing products for Sami Labs ?
These are Curcumin C3 complex, Curcumin C3 Complex – granules, Coleus, Pterostilbene and Bosewellia Serrata. For Sami Direct the range covering Curcumin C3 Power, CoQ Energizer, Omega Bioplus, Toxiflush, Glycacare and Spirulina are registering impressive revenues.
What are the likely future efforts in the space?
From Sami Labs, there are major initiatives in the anti-cancer sphere. Of course, asthma, skin care and cardiac support are other thrust areas. New introductions from Sami Direct would be in the areas of skin care series, vision care and functional food products like soup, protein bar, tea etc
Please share with us the details of the production plant and international presence of the company?
The group is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary. We started operations in 1988 with an initial focus on development of natural products based on the 6000 year old Ayurvedic science to service the expanding the nutraceutical markets in USA. Emphasis was given to do R&D on products having potential for use as traditional medicines as an alternate form of therapy.
The company started manufacturing in India in 1991. The R&D centre was started in 1995. The basic underlying idea was to offer the people, dietary supplements that can assure them a healthy life and help them to enjoy a healthy life style, especially at an age when the human body needs these essentials.
The major production facility was started at Kunigal near Bengaluru in 1996. The corporate R&D centre and offices at Peenya Industrial Area in Bangalore started functioning from 1998. The Biotechnology Unit was started in 2000 followed by the supercritical fluid extraction facility at Nelamangala. A continuous extraction facility was set up in 2007 at Dobaspet and this factory became operational from 2008. During the same period another major manufacturing facility was started in Hyderabad, mainly catering to the raw materials that are available in Andhra and MP. Massive cultivation activities in India for important medicinal plants was started in 2005. A solid dosage facility to manufacture tablets and capsules dedicated to the manufacture and production of dietary supplements was set up in Utah, USA in 2007. All production facilities in India received GMP certification from NSF (USA) in 2007 and also successfully passed USFDA inspection in the year 2011.
Drug Licenses from DCGI were obtained for two drugs developed by the company in 2006-2007. The company received many export excellence awards regularly and in 2002 received the National Award from DSIR for excellence in Industrial R&D. International offices were set up in Japan, Germany, Australia, China, South Africa, Dubai, Vietnam to establish strong business development and local herbal procurement presence worldwide.