Nov-2017

30 31 China, and Iran. Its 425 employees work out of its 240,000-square-foot,Orlando headquarters, and a distribution outlet in Mississauga,Ontario. Its raw materials, as well as its knowledge base, come from all over the world. “Probably one of the most important components of the innovation part of our business is we have es- tablished relationships with some of the leading bio- tech companies in the world,” says Blackburn.“Europe is a big source; Europe is more advanced in the nat- ural ingredient area, so their big pharma companies tend to focus more on research and development of natural ingredients than the U.S. pharma companies do.Most of our real big partners are European.” Not to be outclassed,Xymogen innovated in other areas.“We have, by far, the newest manufacturing fa- cility in our industry,”Blackburn relates.“This building was built, specifically, to manufacture dietary supple- ments and nutraceuticals, based upon the important considerations of airflow, humidity control, and clean- XYMOGEN liness.We have gravity feed; when we blend one of our formulas,we move the tote to a second floor, and hermetically seal and feed it down to the tablet or capsule machine.Nobody else does that.They have vacuum tubes that vacuum the powder from a drum into the machines,which creates all kinds of dust. And we’re able to keep our humidity down around 20 percent -which is not easy to do here in Florida. So,we’re much more advanced than our competitors. In fact only one of our top five competitors even has a purpose-built facility; most of themmoved into a place and retrofitted it to make their products. So,we feel very confident that what we’re able to offer is far more advanced.” The company also moved to better control the sup- ply chain.“We developed something called ePedigree to protect against counterfeit drugs,”Blackburn states. “Every single bottle is serialized, tracked, and traced so we know exactly where it went.With that serial number, you’re able to ascertain that it’s authentic. We developed something called ePedigree to protect against counterfeit drugs. Every single bottle is seri- alized, tracked, and traced so we know exactly where it went. With that serial num- ber, you’re able to ascertain that it’s authentic. ePedigree is extraordinary and we’re the only company in the world doing this; no other pharmaceutical or nutraceu- tical company is tracking and tracing every bottle. BRIAN BLACKBURN CEO