Advagen hopes to fill 'white spaces' in China’s postbiotics market

The company, which runs both nutraceutical and pharmaceutical businesses, is known in the regional scene for its gastrointestinal health products.

For example, it has been selling its soluble dietary prebiotic fibre product Advagen Prebio in Singapore for nearly 20 years. Its pharmaceutical products cater across hematology, oncology, and injectables.

It first started in the local medical scene, where its products are sold through medical channels, allowing patients to access the products after discharging from the hospitals.

About five years ago, it branched into retail pharmacies, including Guardian, Watsons, Unity, as well as e-commerce platforms Shopee and Lazada.  

The company has been planning for its expansion into China, following its recent entry into neighbouring markets Malaysia, Indonesia, and Hong Kong.

Speaking to NutraIngredients-Asia, ​Sofia He, sales and marketing executive at Advagen, said the company would be expanding into China with the launch of its first postbiotic product.

The product, marketed as Advagen Postbio SL, is expected to launch in Singapore by July. Following which, it would be introduced into the China market by year end.

Aimed at supporting healthy immune function and gut microbiome, the capsule product is formulated with Lactobacillus fermentum, Lactobacillus cerevisiae, saccharomyces cerevisiae, ​and fermented culture medium.

“Postbio SL is our proprietary formulation of heat-stabilised, inactivated, beneficial bacteria, with a combination of yeast fermented for healthy immune function and gut microbiome,”​ said He.

Postbiotics, according to He, is at a nascent stage in China and the company hopes to fill the 'white spaces' existing in this category.

Based on her experience at Healthplex Expo 2024 in Shanghai last month, He noticed that there were nutritionists and doctors who were knowledgeable about postbiotics but said there was a lack of such products in the local market.

“What I've noticed is that a lot of the people who are working in the health industry field, they do know what probiotics are.​

“However, as for postbiotics, it is the nutritionists and doctors who would know what postbiotics are and they were interested in our products. ​

“This is because there's a lack of brands that are doing postbiotics In China. For example, they have given feedback on how they did not see that many companies introducing postbiotics during the tradeshow, and that they were excited to see that we are doing postbiotics products,” ​said He.

The Singapore branding has also drawn favourable response.

“They also wanted to use that reputation and expertise from trusted products from overseas to promote and educate their customers about postbiotics,”​ she said.

The company hopes to replicate its model in Singapore by introducing its products into China via the medical channels and also e-commerce.

Postbiotics is a smaller category as compared to probiotics in China.

Still, the industry is paying attention to this category with the China Nutrition and Health Food Association (CNHFA) drafting industry standards​ for quantifying postbiotics or inactivated cells.

On the other hand, data from CNHFA has showed that China’s probiotics market size had increased from RMB$64.8bn (US$8.91bn) to about RMB$109.1bn (US$15bn) between 2018 and 2022, registering a CAGR of 14 per cent.

Aside from China, the company is also planning expansion into the US and emerging markets such as Latin America, Africa, and other South East Asian markets. These include the Philippines, Myanmar, and Thailand.

There are also plans for new product development focusing on gut health.