The fastest growing metabolite segment right now? we won't leak the news
According to Nutrition Business Journal (2020), the estimated market size for nutritional biomarkers is $100m with a CAGR of over 16% from 2021 to 2026.
Based on our own data on the Qina platform, the number of startups in the segment has increased from 12 in 2014 to 47 in 2020 representing an increase of 267%.
Urine has a variety of metabolites that help provide information about a person’s health status, the presence or absence of diseases and infections, or metabolic disorders.
A major hurdle in the use of urine for biomarker analysis is the duration of the sampling period. Twenty-four-hour urine collection is considered the gold standard but is logistically challenging especially in larger studies. Repeated sampling in combination with modeling-based approaches may provide a solution that will allow for shorter sampling periods.
Again, science has advanced rapidly in this area, making urine a convenient, cheap, and non-invasive way to test biomarkers including those for nutrition. From nutritional metabolites such as Vitamin C, to checking for dietary adherence (such as eating wholegrains of vegetables) to identifying dietary eating patterns (vegan vs omnivore), the opportunities are only growing.
Just today, Withings announced their U-scan toilet device at CES, that can measure nutritional and hormonal markers such as Vitamin C, pH, ketones and LH in your urine. At a cost of around $527, the price point is still high, and other questions such as the use by other family members or who can forget the Sharktank´s Cittykitty? come up for me. Nevertheless, non-invasive and long-term is the way to go to get a better picture of overall health, so I look forward to seeing the adoption.
Our Executive Data briefs explore current and hot topics in the personalized nutrition industry such as nutritional biomarkers.