Hontebio Releases the First White Paper on Zebrafish Technology Application in China's Nutritional Health Food Industry

April 20, the first"White Paper on the Application of Zebrafish Technology in China's Nutritional and Health Food Industry"Officially launched at the AAES 2023 Natural Health Products Industry Conference.

“White Paper on the Application of Zebrafish Technology in China’s Nutritional and Health Food Industry,” image provided by the interviewee

Notably, this white paper is the first in the global nutritional health food industry to focus on the application of zebrafish technology.Hunter BiotechnologyAs the lead drafting organization of this white paper, with nearly a decade of deep cultivation in the broader health sector, we have established200+ typesExtensive practices and explorations have been conducted in the evaluation of efficacy and safety regarding nutrition, immunity, and gut health using zebrafish and mammalian models. The internationally leading "zebrafish + organoids + mammals + human evaluation" technology has been successfully applied to nutritional formula R&D, raw material screening, production quality control, marketing endorsement, new product registration, and the construction and operation of zebrafish laboratories. Furthermore, we have led the release of 12 group standards and compiled two white papers: the White Paper on the Application of Zebrafish Technology in China's Nutritional and Health Food Industry and the White Paper on the Application of Zebrafish Technology in China's Cosmetics Industry.

Looking back to 2012, a period when China was striving to transition from a major producer of generic drugs to a powerhouse in innovative medicines, Li Chunqi, founder of Hunter Biotechnology and a scientist boasting titles such as MIT postdoctoral fellow and former expert member of the World Health Organization, made the immediate decision to return to China. He established Hunter Biotechnology, positioning drug development services as the entry point for its business operations.

“Hunter Biotechnology aims to develop a bioassay technology that can be applied to the research and development of pharmaceuticals, health supplements, and cosmetics, while also contributing to food safety and environmental protection. This technology serves as a complement to traditional physicochemical testing, enabling a more comprehensive assessment of the biological safety of related products and prediction of their efficacy. Zebrafish-based bioassay and safety R&D technology is precisely such a solution, aligning with domestic industry development trends and offering substantial commercial and social value,” stated Dr. Li Chunqi.

Zebrafish, as a model organism with up to 87% genetic homology to humans, offers unique advantages characterized by “high throughput and high reliability, fast delivery and high efficiency, intuitive visualization and ease of interpretation, and cost savings,” enabling reliable simulation and prediction of human physiological and pathological processes.

Furthermore, the high sensitivity of zebrafish not only underscores their prominence in scientific research but also enables them to excel in the field of bioassay. They are particularly suitable for testing traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)-based health foods, cosmetics, and food products that feature multi-component, multi-target, mild efficacy, and slow-acting properties.

While HuanTe BioFrom Drug R&D Services to Nutritional Health Supplements, precisely stemming from the team’s initial foray into R&D services for traditional Chinese medicine.

Cao Bingbing, Deputy General Manager of Hunter Biotechnology. Photo provided by the interviewee

Cao Bingbing, Deputy General Manager of Hunter Biotechnology, told Chengguo Bureau: “In the initial years, Hunter Biotechnology provided upstream services for chemical drugs. However, in 2016, while conducting R&D services for traditional Chinese medicine, the company leveraged the concept of ‘medicine and food sharing the same origin’ to expand its offerings into the R&D services for nutritional health supplements.” As research into zebrafish technology applications deepened, Hunter Biotechnology discovered that zebrafish technology holds numerous unique advantages for application in the nutritional health supplement industry.

First,Technological ConnectivityLeveraging zebrafish technology, Hunter Biotechnology has established a high-efficiency R&D system for innovative drugs, encompassing raw material screening and optimization, process development, formulation, and quality control. Similar to innovative drug development, the raw materials used in nutritional health supplements are predominantly natural, characterized by multi-target effects and less clearly defined functions. From the perspective of clinical nutrition, truly effective nutritional health supplements must adhere to evidence-based medicine; at the earliest stage of formulation, medical evidence is required to clarify the relationship between nutrients and diseases. This approach is highly similar to the quality assurance systems employed in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

However, compared with drug development, the advancement of nutritional and health supplements has been relatively lagging, with significant uncertainties remaining in the identification and selection of raw materials. Leveraging its profound technical accumulation in the biomedical industry, Hunter Biotechnology has extended its zebrafish technology—originally applied to drug discovery—to the nutritional and health supplement sector, rapidly establishing a strategic presence in this field.

Second,Applicability of the Technology. Zebrafish, as a model organism sharing up to 87% genetic similarity with humans, has become a widely used important model organism worldwide following validation for specificity, high-throughput capability, and reproducibility. It has laid a solid foundation for establishing scientific models and holds significant commercial potential in medical discoveries, drug screening, and efficacy and safety evaluations.

“The nutraceutical and health supplement industry requires a technology that is both sensitive and capable of evaluating product efficacy and safety in the short term, and zebrafish technology meets this requirement precisely,” introduced Cao Bingbing. In the drug development process, zebrafish technology can limit detection time to within 24 hours, with a maximum of three days, while costing only one-tenth or even less than traditional methods. Furthermore, its high sensitivity makes zebrafish technology particularly suitable for testing nutritional and functional health foods characterized by multi-component formulations, multi-target mechanisms, mild efficacy, and slow-acting effects.

In the post-pandemic era, following the public scrutiny triggered by the “tech and harsh additives” controversy, food innovation has increasingly returned to focusing on the product itself. A growing number of health and wellness companies are leveraging R&D innovations to highlight the intrinsic flavors and functional benefits of foods, thereby enhancing consumer acceptance of their nutritional value propositions.

Highlighting the “nutritional value” of food has become a new growth driver for nutrition and health food companies in the post-pandemic era.

However, food innovation is not limited to the food products themselves but encompasses the entire food supply chain, including innovations in raw material production, food processing, packaging, storage, and transportation.

“The history of zebrafish technology applications in China’s industrial sector is the development history of Hunter Biotechnology. Initially, leveraging zebrafish biotechnology, our business was limited to efficacy and safety evaluation of products, 24 functional tests, and screening and validation of raw material formulations.” Recalling the early days of the business, Cao Bingbing couldn’t help but reflect, “Now, what we are doing has already become”End-to-end product R&D and testing services, spanning early-stage raw material procurement, mid-stage product development, and late-stage marketing and promotion.。”

According to Cao Bingbing, in recent years, Hunter Biotechnology has not only actively embraced the corporate emphasis on product R&D and innovation but also delivered a novel one-stop efficacy and safety solution experience to the nutritional health food industry. Covering aspects from product efficacy and safety evaluation, 24 functional tests, and raw material formulation screening and validation, to toxicological safety assessment, microbiological testing, and precision nutrition solutions, Hunter Biotechnology helps make products healthier with visible results.

Moreover, Hunter Biotechnology is deeply involved in every aspect of the production and promotion of nutritional health products, continually embracing China’s current food innovation with advanced cutting-edge technologies, and driving forward the research and development of nutritional health products through continuous technological iteration and breakthroughs.

In the early stages of product development, leveraging zebrafish biotechnology, Hunter Biotechnology not only screens for high-quality raw materials through ingredient testing to help clients identify cost-effective suppliers, but also assists in selecting the most suitable formulations for large-scale production once the raw materials are finalized.

Following the formulation of the composition, Hunter Biotechnology leveraged its zebrafish technology and related data to help clients secure intellectual property rights for their achievements through patents, academic papers, and achievement registrations, thereby supporting brand building. Furthermore, Hunter Biotechnology collaborated with national-level institutions, including the China National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment and the China National Institute of Standardization, to jointly conduct research and develop and release standards, showcasing clients’ product characteristics to the external market.

To date, Hunter Biotechnology has carved out a significant niche in the nutritional and health supplement industry, establishing over 200 relevant disease models covering chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and cancer. Its client portfolio includesBright Dairy, Feihe Milk Powdersuch as well-known dairy companies, and also withUniversities, Research Institutes, and HospitalsEstablish close ties to provide researchers with scientific research consulting services, including study design, experimental services, and patent applications.

Currently, with the booming development of the “Big Health+” industry and the widespread promotion of health and wellness concepts, how to leverage technological innovation to create more competitive Big Health products has become a key topic of discussion within the industry.

Hunter Biotechnology has also kept pace with the times by continuously innovating its “zebrafish + organoids + mammals + humans” technology platform. In addition to providing safety and efficacy evaluation services for nutritional and health food products, the company has focused on the field of precision nutrition, establishing a distinctive “In vivo (zebrafish model) + in vitro (organoid model)” precision nutrition program.

Organoid Models, it involves culturing human-derived tissues into 3D cell models to rapidly evaluate the efficacy of nutritional health supplements in vitro, thereby providing authentic feedback on how patient tissue samples respond to different nutritional health products.

Furthermore, Hunter Biotechnology will also integrateAIwith the “zebrafish + organoids + mammals + humans” technology, to establish “Zhiyu Youjian“Biological database: leveraging biotechnology and big data to address R&D pain points in the nutritional health supplement industry, empowering high-quality industry development!”

It is foreseeable that, driven by the new generational shift and profound changes in the consumer market, more “Big Health+” enterprises and emerging brands will rise. In an era where marketing of nutritional health supplements is rampant, Hunter Biotechnology, in its “Professionalism First"...on the path of continuous improvement. Driven by three key innovations—scientific research and R&D services, smart laboratory construction, and precision medicine—Huantte Bio is committed to providing ultra-professional nutritional health product development solutions for companies in the broader health sector. This is Huantte Bio's original aspiration and the destination it strives to reach."