NPEW 2025 live: Kyowa Hakko unlocks brain health benefits in protein bar partnership
07 Mar 2025 | Kyowa Hakko
At the ongoing trade show Natural Products Expo West (NPEW), Kyowa Hakko highlights its partnership with Mosh, a protein bar brand that added Kyowa Hakko’s patented form of citicoline, Cognizin, to product reformulations in the summer of 2024. Registered dietitian Katie Emerson, senior manager of scientific affairs at Kyowa Hakko, details Cognizin’s science-backed benefits in improving focus, attention, memory, and mental energy. She also teases upcoming research conducted by Kyowa Hakko.
This is Yolanda van Hel for Nutrition Insight.
I'm here at Natural Products Expo West with Katie Emerson, who is senior manager of scientific affairs at Koahako.
Thank you for joining us today.
Of course, thank you for having me.
And I know you you're showcasing several ingredients of Kohako here, but I'm really curious to learn more about the science behind sitcholine and how it sets it apart from other brain health ingredients.
So sitcholine cognizant.
Is the branded name that we refer to it as is different and unique in that we test it in healthy subjects so there's a lot of wonderful ingredients out there and then when you test them in a disease population you tend to see a wonderful outcomes which is great but people who are taking dietary supplements tend to be in the healthy range right?
So we wanna know if they work for you and so when we test it in that population we get better claims because we have better efficaciousness and we have clinical.
Dosages that we can use and then we work with our final goods products that will make sure that that dose is accurately reflected on the label and in the formulation so we stand out because we know that it's going to work for almost everybody that uses it in different age groups, males, females, everyone and I know you're also showcasing the partnership with Mos here at the show.
Can you talk a little bit about the inspiration of they reformulated the.
Protein bar including your ingredients, can you talk a bit about how that process went?
Why is root formulation and what's idol actually adds there?
Yeah, the mosh team is wonderful.
Love working with them.
It's been such a collaborative effort on both parts.
I think what they saw was they started with a formula that was good, right?
They have amazing ingredients in that product, but what they were finding is that you really need.
A hero ingredient that has the science that has the substantiation.
So when you make these claims, especially around memory, it's a pretty high risk category.
You know, people taking it are expecting to see solid improvements.
Cognizant has that study.
We have several studies actually.
We have, I think, 8 supporting human clinical studies looking at memory, whether it's working memory, long term memory, and so when we paired up with MS, it just, it was a no-brainer, pun intended.
Just that we we fit so with what they were doing and and then their mission and vision of helping people with memory deficits related to cognitive decline as you age, so it's been such a wonderful partnership and they do a great job showcasing us and we do a great job showcasing them so it's it's a it's a yin and yang relationship that I love working with awesome and I'm also curious how if you can talk about how Kohao approaches partnership.
With brands like Mas to help them innovate while maintaining that scientifically backed health plans that you were talking about.
Yeah, it's fun.
I actually just got a text message from a group and they're like, Hey, we have this ingredient, but we're thinking about adding one of your ingredients, and they do that because they like, I read a study or I saw you presenting at a conference and it's like and it fit what their narrative is for their product.
So if they go, Hey, I have a recovery product.
Do you think this ingredient will fit in there and then we meet, we talk about the science, we talk about their claims that they want to make and if it's not a good fit, we'll say hey we're not a good fit, you know, we're very ethical and that we we make sure that our science is reflective in what they want to achieve from their product.
So sometimes they come to us, sometimes we go to them.
That's why these shows are so great because we'll see a product and I'm like, oh my gosh, we would be perfect in that product.
Let's go talk to them.
So it's.
Fun to see the partnerships, how they evolve, whether it's coming from them or us, but I love doing that and the science just brings it together.
And I'm also curious what the consumer responses have been, if you have any insights on that with the new with its inclusion in the March bars and in terms of focus or memory, mental energy, what do consumers say?
So marketing does a great job at consumer research data, and I have seen a Huge growth and recognizing our brand but also since Mosh has put our logo kind of like on the face of their bars and on their website and really highlighting it is it shows that credibility and I think customers have a sense of like trust with it they go oh I know that ingredient cognizant, right?
I I've seen it all over the place and so when you when you showcase that people just feel like they're getting a high quality premium ingredient that they can.
Trust and rely on to deliver those claims and so I think more and more brands are coming out because of consumers wanting that awesome and what can you tell us about upcoming research at SO?
So part of my role is to conduct research and I'm super excited to say that we are running multiple studies currently and we have a couple projects in the pipeline, some I can't talk about some happy to talk about.
We are investigating mood with cognizance, so we do know that it works on the neurotransmitters acetylcholine, norepinephrine, dopamine, and so we're we have an idea through previous research and then consumer feedback that it is giving you a mood enhancing effect.
We don't like to make that claim until we can back it up with the science, so we are doing a study there and then I have a sports nutrition background, so I'm really excited to see.
In a sports aspect for performance around reaction time, processing speed, motor function.
My daughter is a soccer player.
She drinks the bum energy drinks that have cognizant in it, and I swear it has an effect on their hand-eye coordination and reaction time.
So I'm taking what I've watched with her and putting it in a clinical application and hopefully in the next year we'll have data to talk about, but it's really exciting studies.
Awesome, thank you so much.
