IVF doctor-founded brand to drive prenatal nutrition across India with fellow practitioners
The brand is currently active in East India, especially in Kolkata where it works with about 80 doctors regularly in recommending prenatal multivitamins to mothers-to-be.
Some of its partnering doctors include those from Apollo hospital branches.
Dr. Rajeev Agarwal, an in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) doctor from Renew Healthcare is one of the co-founders of Dame Health.
He started Dame Health about 1.5 years ago with his son Sahil Agarwal.
Speaking to NutraIngredients-Asia, Sahil pointed out that awareness of prenatal supplementation remained low in India. The brand hopes to change the current landscape by working with doctors to drive consumer education.
The brand started engaging doctors about five months ago and in the upcoming weeks, it is hoping to finalise an agreement with a hospital chain.
The agreement, when finalised, will introduce Dame Health’s prenatal supplements to outside of East India. About 78 infertility fertility clinics across India are expected to come onboard through the agreement, he said.
“We're currently in talks with one of the largest infertility chains in India to try to become their nutraceutical partner,” he said.
While the brand also sells its products via its website, Sahil said that the strategy for prenatal supplement would largely focus on partnerships with doctors due to low consumer awareness.
He pointed out that women usually take prenatal nutrients such as folic acid only after they realised that they were pregnant and paid a visit to gynaecologist. It is usually at this point they will start taking folic acid.
However, this would have missed the most crucial part about folic acid supplementation, as this needs to take place even before pregnancy.
Pre-conception folic acid supplementation is a primary measure in preventing birth defects, especially neural tube defects (NTDs), based on existing scientific research.
Many Indian consumers also do not see the need for prenatal supplementation as their parents’ generation did not do so, Sahil said.
Taking supplements is also seen as an added expense instead of investment.
“Some people also feel that since their parents never had preconception multivitamins and they grew up fine, why should they need to take one?
“But the issue is that what we have today is not the same as what our parents had 30 years ago, which means that we are more nutrient deficient,” he said.
Based on data from the National Family Health Survey and Individual file encompassing a sample of 491,484 married women between 15 and 49 years old, the prevalence of infertility is 18.7 per 1,000 women among those married for at least five years and currently in union.
Elsewhere in the US, spending on prenatal supplements was projected to hit over US$189 million by the end of 2023 and was expected to grow, according to a report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) last year, citing findings from an independent market research group.
Dame Health’s prenatal supplement Opti-Natal is formulated with 21 key ingredients, including iron, vitamin D, inositol, B vitamins, and L-methyl folate – which is said to be a more bioavailable version of folic acid.
Consumers are recommended to start taking it at least three months before pregnancy.
Men opening up to fertility supplements too
While infertility remains a taboo topic in India, men are increasingly willing to try out fertility supplements under anonymity, based on the brand’s observations.
“Men's fertility is something which is, again, a huge taboo topic in India. So the wives will go and consult a gynaecologist, but it’s a little bit of an uncomfortable conversation for the husband.
“This is the reason why they prefer to try out supplements bought from online, see how it goes, and try to solve the issue through that. This is one big learning that we've got,” he said.
In fact, Dame Health’s men’s fertility multivitamin, Opti-Men, has become one of its bestsellers.
Key ingredients include zinc, ginseng, vitamin D, B12, and L-methyl folate.
According to the brand, the ingredients are aimed at promoting healthy sperm production, improving sperm motility, and restoring energy and vitality.
Its other bestsellers include plant-protein, which is seeing a strong uptake via the e-commerce channel as well.
Lack of reproductive health products in Indian market
Sahil said that Dame Health was started to fill the market gap in India for reproductive and women’s health products.
He explained that the Indian nutraceutical market was heavy on products for hair, skin, nails, but lacking in taboo areas such as fertility, menstruation, and menopause.
To which, the brand has also designed products for these areas. An example is Resver+, a capsule product containing resveratrol that claims to improve polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) symptoms, promote oocyte quality, and promotes regular menstrual cycles.
“Basically, what we realised was that there are so many nutraceutical brands out there in the market, but most of them are focusing a lot on hair health, skin health, a lot on cosmetic changes.
“There are also some that focus more on holistic nutrition. But what we realised throughout this spectrum was that people don't focus enough on women's health issues, PCOS, menopause, preconception, fertility,” he said.
The brand hopes to target these areas also by providing more bioavailable ingredients, such as magnesium glycinate and ubiquinol.
