Niagen Bioscience is a company focused on NAD science that develops and commercializes nicotinamide riboside and related NAD-boosting products for healthier aging.
Rob, could you walk us through Niagen Bioscience’s evolution and the significance of its recent rebranding?
Niagen Bioscience began over 25 years ago as ChromaDex, originally focused on standards and analytical testing, with deep expertise in assessing ingredient quality and purity across the industry. We leveraged that strength to ensure the products we sell today meet the highest quality standards. Over time, we became an ingredient business, licensing patents for a small set of ingredients that demonstrated scientific potential. One of the ingredients became a “blockbuster,” nicotinamide riboside, which we built a patent portfolio around and began researching extensively.
As research emerged in the late 2000s and early 2010s on the role of NAD in the aging body, we expanded our focus on NAD precursors and developed the regulatory and manufacturing capabilities to commercialize nicotinamide riboside, branding it as Niagen. The business later shifted further toward commercialization, including selling into the dietary supplement market, and ultimately we developed a one of its kind external research program to help propel NAD science forward.
You’ve framed NAD less as a treatment for age-related conditions and more as a mechanism for supporting and maintaining health. Would you say your strategy aligns with the current focus in the U.S. on prevention?
Yes, it does. There are clear trends aligned with preventative healthcare and health span, which people are focusing on earlier now more than ever. We’re measuring elements we know influence how the body ages, like sleep, dietary intake, caloric intake, and exercise, but also NAD levels. NAD levels naturally decline starting as early as your 20s, with a steeper drop often seen through midlife (roughly ages 30–60). They can also fall quickly under metabolic stress—like during viral illness or inflammation—and with everyday stressors such as sunburn, heavy alcohol intake, a high-fat diet, poor sleep, and more. When cells are under stress, they call on NAD to repair the damage. Helping those cells stay rich in NAD can support recovery, which is why we’re seeing growing consumer interest among consumers over 50, women in their late 20s to late 30s, and the fitness community.
What differentiates your approach to elevating NAD?
NAD itself is not bioavailable. You need a precursor or building block to elevate NAD within the cell. The most efficient and effective precursor is nicotinamide riboside or NR--which we patent as Niagen--a unique form of Vitamin B3 found in nature, which crosses directly into the cell, while NAD itself and other precursors, like NMN, cannot. While a healthy lifestyle and diet support NAD, these practices alone do not elevate NAD enough to be meaningful. But taking Niagen, or Tru Niagen, will safely and effectively elevate NAD levels.
Research shows that Niagen elevates NAD in the cells that are most damaged. Meaning, not only is Niagen an efficient and safe way to elevate NAD, it also appears to support the cells that are most in need.
Does that imply there are less safe ways to elevate NAD?
Yes. There are other vitamins and precursors that elevate NAD, but not as efficiently as nicotinamide riboside. Niacin, for example, is also a vitamin B3 that elevates NAD, but has dramatic side effects, including flushing. While there are other ways to elevate NAD besides Niagen, research suggests the safest and best way to do it is through Niagen.
Your company has invested in external research partnerships. What’s the reason behind such initiatives?
Through our external research program, independent or third-party investigators from top research institutions worldwide, including National Institute on Aging, Mayo Clinic, Cambridge University, Harvard University, and University of Copenhagen, looking to uncover the potential of NAD, request Niagen for their clinical and preclinical studies. We’ve now signed over 300 agreements with these research institutions to investigate how Niagen works, where and when it elevates NAD, what conditions it may affect, and its safety. This program has generated more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, including over 40 peer-reviewed published clinical studies on Niagen. Most consistently show it’s safe and elevates NAD, including dose-response effects where the more you take, the more NAD levels improve.
We also initiate certain studies ourselves to understand how Niagen works on organs like the liver, brain, and heart, and how it affects outcomes like walking, blood flow, and recovery. We intend to invest in additional long-term studies that, while difficult to do, may demonstrate the preventative benefits of elevating NAD with Niagen.
Can you share more about your studies with respect to long COVID?
A key highlight of the long COVID clinical study is in fatigue. NAD is integrally involved in the Krebs cycle, where mitochondria convert oxygen and nutrients into energy, ATP. For years, people taking Tru Niagen have shared anecdotal reports of energy support, so we were curious about fatigue-related conditions like long COVID and others. The study was funded by the McCance Center for Brain Health at Mass General Hospital and by Niagen Bioscience; however, while we partially funded the study and provided Niagen NR and placebo materials, we had no role in study design, conduct, outcomes, analyses, or study publication. It was a 24-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group study in 58 adults with long COVID. The Niagen group took 2,000mg per day.
At the end of that period, we saw the Niagen group had benefits in fatigue levels and even in areas like depression, sleep quality, and executive function, but it wasn’t statistically significant, likely due to the small sample size and high dropout rates resulting from reinfection, relocation, and medication changes, which reduced statistical power. They then gave the placebo group 10 weeks of Niagen, and they also improved. When you combine the full 58-participant dataset, you see consistent, significant improvements in energy, fatigue levels, and even in depression. We thought that was meaningful and underscores the need for larger studies to further understand the observed trends in symptom improvement.
Your research extends to the impact of NAD on brain health and rare diseases…
We’ve seen trends in both preclinical and clinical studies suggesting reductions in neuroinflammation, and not only in the brain, but also in heart and muscle inflammation. There are seven clinical studies showing elevating NAD with Niagen reduces key inflammation markers, guiding where future research could go. There have also been dramatic preclinical studies recently, including one that suggested elevating NAD reversed Alzheimer’s in mice.
For healthy people, elevating NAD is about supporting cellular resilience and preventative healthcare, while there’s more therapeutic potential for those with mitochondrial-type disorders.
We see a relationship between NAD levels and how the body ages, which is why rare Orphan Diseases in which children age rapidly is such an important area of research for us.
We’ve been contacted by foundations researching orphan diseases like progeria, Cockayne syndrome, and various forms of ataxia. We’ve created Niagen and placebo material agreements through our external research program for preclinical and clinical research, and the results have been positive. We also brought Dr. Vilhelm Bohr, formerly of the NIH, onto our scientific advisory board, as he is an expert in age-related orphan diseases. Unfortunately, children with these diseases age very rapidly, demonstrating the relationship between NAD and aging.
Where do you see Niagen Bioscience in the next two years?
We are uncovering NAD science through our external research program and are dedicated to advancing healthspan through precision science and innovative NAD+-boosting solutions. We’ve commercialized Niagen in the dietary supplement space as Tru Niagen, which today is the number one NAD boosting oral supplement in the US, and in 2024 we rolled out pharmaceutical-grade Niagen in the injection and IV space. We are the first company in the US to offer a novel ingredient (Niagen) both as a direct-to-consumer dietary supplement (Tru Niagen) and an intravenous pharmaceutical-grade product.
Topical skin is an interesting area as there’s potential evidence it supports hair, skin, and nails. In the therapeutic clinical space, see rare diseases as an important area of pursuit. More broadly, as we learn more about health span, we believe NAD management should have a seat at the table for its potential to support preventative health. In the coming years, we expect to continue expanding our understanding, rollout, product mix, and availability, and potentially extend further into age-related businesses and services.
