Plasma Nutrition enters bariatric health market with Genepro’s whey offering

13 Oct 2021 --- US-based Plasma Nutrition is seeing its ioWhey protein in use for the first time in a specialized nutrition product from Genepro – Genepro Gen3. The third generation of Genepro’s powder supplement targets bariatric health with easily digestible protein.

The company notes that patients who have undergone weight loss surgeries, like gastric bypasses, require far more protein than other groups and traditional whey protein can exacerbate digestive issues.

To address this, ioWhey uses Ingredient Optimized (io) processing technology, which improves the protein structure. This increases bioavailability by 123% and reduces gastric distress by 46%.  Ingredient Optimized includes a specifically designed hardware platform and a food transformation process used to create ioWhey.

Rethinking Genepro
Genepro aims to cater to a wide variety of health conditions, dietary restrictions and wellness goals. 

“We knew right away when we came across Plasma Nutrition’s patented Ingredient Optimized technology that we had to rethink Genepro. After reading through its five years of research and ten human clinical trials, we were sold, and Genepro Gen3 was born,” explains Zac Cain, president of Genepro.

He further describes Genepro Gen3 as the “benchmark for how we should be thinking about protein.” 

The gluten-free powder is also positioned for immunity due to the inclusion of ImmunoLin, an Entera Health immuno-protein. Made with specifically purified serum proteins, it provides concentrated immunoglobulins to support the body’s natural immune defenses in the gut. 

The powder is also unflavored and offered in two sizes at launch – 28 servings and 60 servings. 

Catering to rising obesity rates
Rising obesity rates mean that there is a significant market for products catering to bariatric health. Notably, obesity was a factor in more than one million admissions to UK National Health Service (NHS) hospitals last year.

However, the data also reveals that there were 6,740 Finished Consultant Episodes (FCEs) with a primary diagnosis of obesity and a main or secondary procedure of bariatric surgery in 2019/20. This marked a fall of 4% from 2018/19 (7,011).

At the start of last year, Plasma Nutrition also launched ioPea Protein, which it says is the first pea protein nutritionally comparable to whey protein in terms of bioavailability.

Edited by Katherine Durrell