There has been a great deal of opportunities in the recent past in the nutraceutical space, for raw materials manufacturers, formulations manufacturers, consumer brands and others. But, the upcoming opportunities in the nutraceutical space will dwarf what we have seen so far. The emergence of new exponential technologies such as artificial intelligence, writing genetics, big data and advanced computing are all paving a new era of advancement in food, nutrition and medicine on a global scale.
At one level, you have the solutions that are made possible because of the direct impact of Moore’s law such as affordable and extensively scale-able computing that is on demand and within the reach of most people. This has enabled universities, business and research organizations sort though and process vast amounts of research data and raw technical data and develop models that generate new insights and further our understanding of relationships between data points that were previously unknown.
Added to this, the developments in synthetic biology and advanced bio-sciences is helping businesses and organizations explore new ideas and solutions at a faster rate than before. The important thing to notice is that, the improvement in the speed of computing and its democratization has its impact on most industries. It is going to be the factor that propels the nutraceuticals industry into its future.
On the whole, you could say that solutions to existing and emerging problems in food, nutrition and medicine are being developed at a rate that was previously inconceivable. What you need to do to equip yourself for this new paradigm shift is to adopt the new methodologies and embrace technology that helps you experiment and test your ideas faster than before.
It can be pointed out that it is not because there were not enough ideas to explore that true innovation was slow in the nutraceuticals industry, but because the R&D to market time was phenomenal and did not make economic sense for most small to medium players to invest in new products or ideas and assume a big risk. However, since experimentation, research and clinical trials can all be done faster, are made more affordable and can be scaled, the landscape of innovation in nutraceutical industry is set to change.
What we need is a shift in mindset, and an atmosphere that is conducive to innovations that are not only for the betterment of the industry, but also for humanity at large. Our prediction is that companies with a true commitment to help people will grow and prosper. The convergence of new technology and the industries best practices should give rise to a new beginning for everyone involved. Let us prepare for this new beginning.
