Type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Provides affiliate marketing of certified products Offers certification for supplement manufacturers for a fee |
Founded | May 2012 |
Founder | Neil Thanedar and others |
Headquarters | , |
Website | www |
Labdoor is a privately held medical company registered in San Francisco, California, founded in May 2012 by Neil Thanedar. It provides information on dietary supplements, which do not require testing by the FDA in the United States. [1]
Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Shri Thanedar, Neil Thanedar graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with degrees in Cellular & Molecular Biology and Business Administration. [2] [3]
Neil Thanedar co-founded Avomeen Analytical Services with his father in 2010. [4] [5] He founded Labdoor (originally "Labrdr Inc" [6] ) in May 2012 [7] [8] with co-founders Rafael Ferreira, Helton Souza, and Tercio Junker. [9] [10] [11] Labdoor pursued venture investors in 2012, 2015, and 2016, ultimately securing approximately $11 Million from groups including Y Combinator, Floodgate Fund, and Rock Health. [11] [12] [13] A controlling share of Avomeen Analytical Services was sold to an investment group in 2016. [14] [15] [16] [17]
Since November 2013, Labdoor's primary income is affiliate marketing for retailers, such as Amazon, of products they have tested and certified. [18] Labdoor also offers testing services to supplement manufacturers, assessing "accuracy", "purity", and "sport". [19] If a product passes testing, Labdoor will also "drive sales" through its certification program and retailer referrals. [20] [19]
As of September 2021, Labdoor's new product selection procedure uses market research and an internal "tally of votes" system to choose which new product category will be selected to test next. [21]
In June 2018, Labdoor launched the crypto-currency TEST. It seeks to create a incentive system for individuals or organizations to anonymously create or raise a bounty on a product for independent laboratories to test. [22] [23] TEST will be in initial coin offering (ICO) stage through December 2018. [24]
Labdoor buys dietary supplements directly from retailers, sends the products to an FDA-registered laboratory for analysis,[ citation needed ] and publishes the findings. Its mission is to share information to help consumers make the right decisions for themselves about dietary supplements.[ according to whom? ] Labdoor's rankings have sometimes been published by the press and online media. [25] [26] [27] [28] [29]
Their findings resulted in the FDA taking a closer look at the safety of energy drinks. [30] Labdoor evaluated Alex Jones's supplements, stating "the science behind many of their claimed ingredients are questionable." [31] [32] [33] [34] Some 2015 tests of supplement products conducted by a third-party laboratory, which was organized by Labdoor and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), were first published and later retracted upon repeat testing. [35] The supplements were correctly labeled and there was no contamination nor deficiency in the products. [36]
As of August 2016, Labdoor allows manufacturers to challenge a report of a product by re-testing the product, or opt-out of having any reports of the manufacturer's products published on Labdoor's website. [37] [38]
The United States Food and Drug Administration is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food safety, tobacco products, caffeine products, dietary supplements, prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs (medications), vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, blood transfusions, medical devices, electromagnetic radiation emitting devices (ERED), cosmetics, animal foods & feed and veterinary products.
A dietary supplement is a manufactured product intended to supplement one's diet by taking a pill, capsule, tablet, powder, or liquid. A supplement can provide nutrients either extracted from food sources or that are synthetic in order to increase the quantity of their consumption. The class of nutrient compounds includes vitamins, minerals, fiber, fatty acids, and amino acids. Dietary supplements can also contain substances that have not been confirmed as being essential to life, but are marketed as having a beneficial biological effect, such as plant pigments or polyphenols. Animals can also be a source of supplement ingredients, such as collagen from chickens or fish for example. These are also sold individually and in combination, and may be combined with nutrient ingredients. The European Commission has also established harmonized rules to help insure that food supplements are safe and appropriately labeled.
Ephedra is a medicinal preparation from the plant Ephedra sinica. Several additional species belonging to the genus Ephedra have traditionally been used for a variety of medicinal purposes, and are a possible candidate for the soma plant of Indo-Iranian religion. It has been used in traditional Chinese medicine, in which it is referred to as Ma Huang, for more than 2,000 years. Native Americans and Mormon pioneers drank a tea brewed from other Ephedra species, called "Mormon tea" and "Indian tea".
Sibutramine, formerly sold under the brand name Meridia among others, is an appetite suppressant which has been discontinued in many countries. It works as a serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor similar to a tricyclic antidepressant. Until 2010, it was widely marketed and prescribed as an adjunct in the treatment of obesity along with diet and exercise. It has been associated with increased cardiovascular diseases and strokes and has been withdrawn from the market in 2010 in several countries and regions including Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. However, the drug remains available in some countries.
GNC Holdings, LLC is a retail company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It specializes in health and nutrition related products, including vitamins, supplements, minerals, herbs, sports nutrition, diet, and energy products.
Vinpocetine is a synthetic derivative of the vinca alkaloid vincamine, differing by the removal of a hydroxyl group. Vincamine is extracted from either the seeds of Voacanga africana or the leaves of Vinca minor.
Hydroxycut is a brand of dietary supplements that is marketed as a weight loss aid. Hydroxycut was originally developed and manufactured by MuscleTech Research and Development; MuscleTech was sold to Iovate Health Sciences in 2003–2004 and declared bankruptcy in 2005; Iovate continues to use MuscleTech as a brand to market Hydroxycut.
The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition is the branch of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that regulates food, dietary supplements, and cosmetics, as opposed to drugs, biologics, medical devices, and radiological products, which also fall under the purview of the FDA.
ConsumerLab.com, LLC. is a privately held American company registered in White Plains, NY. It is a publisher of test results on health, wellness, and nutrition products. Consumer Labs is not a laboratory, but contracts studies to outside testing laboratories. It purchases dietary supplement products and other consumer goods directly from public storefronts and online retailers, contracts for testing by private laboratories, and publishes reports based on the results. It primarily derives revenue from the sale of subscriptions to its online publications, which are paywalled. Other sources of revenue include a proprietary certification program, licensing fees, contents re-publication license fees, and advertising.
23andMe Holding Co. is a publicly held personal genomics and biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, California. It is best known for providing a direct-to-consumer genetic testing service in which customers provide a saliva sample that is laboratory analysed, using single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping, to generate reports relating to the customer's ancestry and genetic predispositions to health-related topics. The company's name is derived from the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a diploid human cell.
The Office of Global Regulatory Operations and Policy (GO), also known as the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA), is the part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enforcing the federal laws governing biologics, cosmetics, dietary supplements, drugs, food, medical devices, radiation-emitting electronic devices, tobacco products, and veterinary medicine products which may have potentially harmful side effects for the consumer.
A medical laboratory or clinical laboratory is a laboratory where tests are conducted out on clinical specimens to obtain information about the health of a patient to aid in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. Clinical medical laboratories are an example of applied science, as opposed to research laboratories that focus on basic science, such as found in some academic institutions.
Methylhexanamine is an indirect sympathomimetic drug invented and developed by Eli Lilly and Company and marketed as an inhaled nasal decongestant from 1948 until it was voluntarily withdrawn from the market in the 1980s.
Shri Thanedar is an American businessman, author, and politician serving as the U.S. representative from Michigan's 13th congressional district since 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, Thanedar served as a member of the Michigan House of Representatives from 2021 to 2023. He was also a candidate in the Democratic primary for governor of Michigan in the 2018 election.
Swanson Health Products (SHP) is a natural health catalog and Internet marketing company headquartered in Fargo, North Dakota. The company sells natural health and wellness products, including health foods, dietary supplements such as vitamins, minerals, herbs, as well as natural personal care products directly to consumers through mail-order catalogs and an e-commerce website.
NSF is a product testing, inspection, certification organization with headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan. NSF also offers consulting and training services worldwide.
Laboratory developed test (LDT) is a term used to refer to a certain class of in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) that, in the U.S., were traditionally regulated under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments program.
The Chemins Company is a dietary supplement manufacturer based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The company, founded in 1974 by James Cameron, became embroiled in a series of criminal investigations in 1994 after a woman died and more than 100 other people became ill after taking one of the company's products marketed under the brand name Nature's Nutrition Formula One. The adverse events were later linked to the product having been tainted with ephedrine. A three-year federal investigation, which revealed that the company had doctored records, misled FDA investigators, and purposely hindered inspections, led to Cameron being sentenced to 21 months in prison and him and the company being fined $4.7 million. The company also paid out $750,000 to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that the company's protein powder supplements contained approximately half the protein content and twice the carbohydrate content listed on the label.
The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 ("DSHEA"), is a 1994 statute of United States Federal legislation which defines and regulates dietary supplements. Under the act, supplements are regulated by the FDA for Good Manufacturing Practices under 21 CFR Part 111. The act was intended to exempt the dietary and herbal supplement industry from most FDA drug regulations, allowing them to be sold and marketed without scientific backing of their health and medical claims.
Cannabis product testing is a form of product testing analyzes the quality of cannabis extracts, edibles, and THC and CBD levels in an emergent consumer market eager to sell adult use products. Analytical chemistry and microbiology laboratories are important entities in consumer protection. These labs not only determine the condition and viability of cannabinoids, water content, heavy metals, pesticides, terpenes, yeast, but also the presence of mold, mycotoxins, and solvents. These laboratories emerged when advocates of cannabis testing raised concerns about potential contaminants.