Biodiversity as an Innovation Engine for the Nutraceutical Industry

In this Nutritional Outlook video interview, filmed live at Future Nutra Innovation Summit (FNIS) in Margaritaville Lake Conroe, Texas, senior editor Nico Saraceno met with Kerry Hughes, founder and president of Ethnopharm and a board member of the Future Nutra Foundation, to explore why biodiversity, rather than single-compound drug discovery, may hold the key to addressing today's chronic disease burden.

Hughes explains that the "first wave" of plant-based innovation, which gave rise to many pharmaceuticals we rely on today, was built on reductionist science aimed at acute, single-cause problems like pain and inflammation. But with chronic disease rates up 700% since the 1930s—now affecting an estimated six in ten Americans—she argues the industry needs a fundamentally different approach. Botanicals, she says, offer a "superpower" pharmaceuticals can't replicate: complex networks of bioactive compounds that interact with the body across multiple pathways simultaneously.

The conversation then turns to the EBI Network, a group of biodiversity-positive, fully traceable ingredient suppliers spanning Peru, Madagascar, and India. Hughes details the newly forming EBI Partner Circle, an invitation for brands to join in a more dedicated capacity, gaining curated sourcing, marketing support, and a seat in the group's product-development incubator. She also reflects on the notoriously haphazard, decades-long path botanicals often take from traditional use to market-ready product, and why treating biodiversity as a core innovation asset rather than a nice-to-have is critical as the world loses biodiversity at an accelerating pace.

Transcript

Nico Saraceno: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another edition of the Nutritional Outlook video series. Of course, I'm Nico Saracino, senior editor of Nutritional Outlook magazine, reporting live from FNIS in Margaritaville Lake Conroe, Texas. Quite a venue, quite a location. The KOLs have been phenomenal. Of course, one of those being Kerry Hughes, not only the founder and president of Ethnopharm, but she's also on the Future Nutra Foundation's board of directors. So thank you for taking the time to join me today. I know there's a lot going on, so thank you.

Kerry Hughes: Well, thank you for having me. Yes.

Saraceno: Of course. So there's a lot going on. You're going to be actually presenting a session later today, which we'll get into. But I'm curious, in your opinion, why would you say treating illness that's rooted in like complex, interconnected biological systems, why do they point us toward biodiversity rather than, say, like, more targeted, single-compound drug discovery? Could you maybe describe some of that a little bit for us and break it down?

Hughes: Yeah. Well, in my talk, I'm going to be talking about that what I call there's this first wave of plant innovation. You know, it's really the pharmaceuticals that we all know and love and depend on. You know, it really helped us greatly. But this this first wave of plant-based innovation was really based on really reductionistic kind of thinking and science. And also, they were tackling and targeting really acute problems usually. So, pain, inflammation, malaria. You know, these were really kind of you can think of them as more single-cause, single-target, single-molecule type problems. But today's burden that we face is very different from that. Today, we face a very strong burden of chronic disease. So since the 1930s, the rates of chronic disease have gone up 700%.

Saraceno: Wow.

Hughes: Yeah. And it's estimated that six in 10 Americans right now are suffering from chronic disease.

Saraceno: Wow, that's very significant. Six 60%? That's wow, more prominent than I thought.

Hughes: Yeah. And so today's burden, the problem that we're facing, is very different than the problems back then that we were targeting with this first wave of plant-based innovation. So the problems of today are really more multifactorial. They're complex, they're systemic, they're inflammatory. They're multifactorial and they and they're complex and they develop over decades, right? And this is the opportunity for botanicals, because botanicals have a superpower. And so botanicals are not like drugs. They don't function like drugs. Botanicals are complex. They see humans and interact with humans because we evolved with them, right? And so they botanicals have this complex network of bioactive compounds that interact with multiple pathways in context-dependent ways to elicit a result. And this is actually the opportunity for our industry that I feel like few of us are thinking about, and biodiversity is just sitting there waiting to be mined in an ethical way. Yes. know. So there's an opportunity, and that is the innovation opportunity that our industry is built for.

Saraceno: And you mentioned innovation, we heard Ben say that yesterday, that of course FNIS is all built on the foundation of innovation and working together, you know, collaborating and sharing research, obviously from that side of things, which our industry thrives on, and especially with botanicals and things like that. So I'm curious, just to switch gears a little bit. I know you've been talking about this EBI Partner Circle, which I wanted to touch upon for brands that maybe are considering that are not part of it, that are wanting to join this circle, what does moving from treating biodiversity as just like a nice-to-have, which may be overused, but a nice-to-have, to building it rather more into sourcing and product strategy, what does that actually look like in practice?

Hughes: Okay, well, so the EBI Partner Circle is part of, sorry, the EBI Network. So we are a network of high positive impact suppliers from around the world. So right now from Peru, Madagascar, and India, and all of our ingredients are biodiversity positive and fully traceable at the very base level. Now, you can look at the EBI Network as having two main parts to it. So there's this kind of the ingredient and sourcing part, which I just kind of told you about. Yeah. But there's a more exciting thing going on, and that is that we are facilitating the process to market for botanicals, and we're doing this in a way that's really never been done before, is through collaborative product development.

Saraceno: So would you mind just describing what the actual Partner Circle is, and what it's what it's all about, or maybe just like place a nice definition on that?

Hughes: Yeah, I kind of missed that part. So there's the two main parts of the of the EBI Network, and the Partner Circle is really just we're looking for, and where this is forming now, we're looking for a few brands to join us in a more kind of dedicated way, and so if they join this circle, there'll be a sponsorship like a membership, and they will get curated sourcing, right? We'll work with them, and social and marketing support for their ingredients, and also the opportunity to participate in the incubator, because right now it's really being held in a small group. So, so this is an opportunity for brands to come in and see what's going on, and to help influence, you know, what botanicals, what biodiversity we work with, and bring things into the incubator and get things worked on.

Saraceno: Yeah, it sounds like an exciting opportunity to be a part of, so hoping that a lot of a lot of companies do kind of hop on that.

Hughes: Thank you. The pathway to market for most botanicals is very haphazard, and it takes a lot of pieces kind of evolving at, you know, apart and then together all at the same time in order for a botanical to finally make it to market. And it's usually a lot more than any one company has the appetite to like, you know, handle.

Saraceno: Yeah, and I'm curious, how long would it normally take, or on average does it take for a botanical to make it to market? Obviously, that's very complex, so like what's how's that mean? Like I said,

Hughes: I mean it's really haphazard. It can take decades. It can take, you know, forever. There's so many plants that are, okay, well we use them in traditional medicine and they maybe never have been to an export market. You know, they may be only used locally. And then, you know, think about it like then there's maybe some researcher that gets interested in some tribe or something and they say, Okay, well I want to research what they're doing, and then they start doing research and then there's research that's built upon that research, and then, you know, maybe some marketing person like gets a hold of it, you know, and says, Oh, maybe I could do something with that. And you know, they get the idea. And you know, and then it, you know, now the supply chain also needs to be developed and, I mean, there's so much more that has to happen in the market and with the science. And so all these things, you know, it's a lot of work. And it's, you know, based on this foundation usually of traditional medicine or some traditional use that we get the idea, you know, the lead. And so, yeah, it's really haphazard and right now, you know, our industry I have to say, like it's kind of being driven by these like well, it's I guess always we've had some fads, right?

Saraceno: Right, yeah. Totally. Things have come and gone. Sometimes they repeat themselves as well, you know, just like fashion or anything else, right?

Hughes: Yeah, and then there's the influencer-driven fads which, you know, often aren't really based in, you know, something really good.

Saraceno: Yeah, and unfortunately, it's based just on a trend, and not everyone really knows what they're actually doing the trend for or what the actual story is behind it. So yeah. Right.

Hughes: So another haphazard kind of kind of pressure on the system, which can help it develop, you know, that there's interest. I mean in the end, people don't save what they don't value, and we're losing biodiversity fast. And biodiversity is the foundation of innovation. I mean, it's where our whole industry came from. But it's also the innovation of the future, right? Yes. And it's I mean, to me, it's a no-brainer. It's like, why is the industry not, you know, like kind of holding on to this and really ethically developing it and seeing it as the most valuable innovation asset that we have, instead of just this nice-to-have?

Saraceno: Yeah. It's getting it's getting overlooked so far. Hopefully, it will continue with, you know, influencers like yourself and these talks, bringing it to the forefront. So it's going to be interesting to see.

Hughes: Thank you. Yeah. I hope so too.