Eye Health Supplements: Improving Compliance with a Soft Chew Format

At Natural Products Expo West 2026, Sirio Pharma and OmniActive Health Technologies partnered to launch a new soft chew for eye health. In this interview, Doug Brown, Vice President – Americas with Sirio Pharma, discusses the reasoning behind choosing soft chews as an eye health dosage form, noting consumer preference and improved compliance over pills and softgels. He highlights advances in macular degeneration science, key ingredients like lutein and zeaxanthin, and how soft chews appeal to both older adults and younger, prevention-focused consumers.

Learn more about the main ingredient in the soft chew, Lutemax 2020, and how it supports eye health in this interview with Melissa Maglaqui, Director for Regional Marketing with OmniActive Health Technologies, live from Expo West.

Transcript

Erin McEvoy: Hello everyone. I'm here with Doug Brown with Sirio. Thank you for joining us today.

Doug Brown: It's nice to be here. Thanks for being here.

McEvoy: So Sirio is showcasing a new soft chew for eye health. Can you explain a little bit more about why a soft chew as a dosage format for an eye health product?

Brown: Sure, so one of the things that we do best at Sirio is we do extensive market research on trends, and we try to stay as close to the consumer as possible to understand what their needs are, what their interests are in delivery formats. So I've been actually in this industry for more than 40 years, and this is actually my 40th Expo West. And so over the years, the trends have changed from tablets to capsules to soft gels and then to gummies. And Sirio has been a global leader in gummy production for many years, but in recent years, the technology has improved and customer interest has gone from chewable formats into some other variety. So like, gummies continue to be a very popular format, but when you move into soft chews, they provide a format and a matrix that enables you to have more flexibility than some of the gummy formulations. So soft chews is a very interesting and high growth potential category that we found consumers respond very well to. So when you bring in soft chews, you actually expand the amount of consumers that are interested in taking that dosage.

McEvoy: That kind of goes into my next question. Can you talk more about the opportunity eye health has a benefit category, and what may have limited its adoption across a wider range of consumers before?

Brown: So as the science has improved over the years, especially the medical science, eye health conditions like macular degeneration, have become much more readily diagnosed, and people are looking for treatment options. So the AREDS2 to study and the formulations that came into that were a big step change, but scientific research into certain ingredients, like the carotenoids, like lutein and zeaxanthin, has definitely improved the potential treatments for macular degeneration, other eye health degenerative diseases.

On a personal note, both my mother and my father-in-law suffered from macular degeneration, and so they were advised to take soft shell capsules, which was the AREDS2 formula in that solution, and it was modestly effective. But the real problem when you take pills and soft gels is compliance. So consumers don't always like taking those formats, swallowing the pill, and as they get older, swallowing becomes more of a challenge. So, and I noticed this in my own mother and my father-in-law, that that just became sort of a chore. They knew it was necessary, but it was sort of a chore. When you switch into a soft chew, or a gummy, or one of those types of formats, it becomes an organoleptic experience that's much more pleasurable, and it's something that they actually look forward to every day, if the taste is done right. Sirio does taste very, very well. So net result is you get higher compliance, which means you get better results, because people take it every day in the indicated doses.

McEvoy: Absolutely, so to expand on that a little bit. So as the eye health category expands to encompass more age groups, not just older adults, how does the soft chew to enable brands to market to younger demographics who are looking for more preventative purposes instead of reactive?

Brown: So that actually plays directly into the soft chew format, because clear indication is we have entire generations that have become young adults now that grew up on gummy bears and gummy candies and Starburst style soft chews and things like that. So when you produce a health benefit solution that's in one of those formats, it's much more appealing to the younger generations. It's also appealing to other generations because of its easier, much more enjoyable delivery, right? So in terms of being able to expand the audience reached by eye health solutions and to hit the preventative or proactive class of consumers, soft chews provide a really, really good solution.

McEvoy: All right, thank you for meeting with me. It's very good information.

Brown: I really enjoyed it. Thank you for your time.