Pharma Marine, new beginnings ...

In 2006, when Napro Pharma was sold to Cognis, Leif Kjetil Gjendemsjø left one of the most profitable and successful companies in the Omega-3 fish oil business behind him.
 
In his mind he knew that whatever business he might eventually start in the future, would have to be a step up from the increasingly commoditized fish oil, it would have to be a paradigm shift of the Omega-3 industry.
 
Ever since Leif Kjetil and Asgeir Sæbø first met at Lipro in the mid -80’s they have kept contact and followed each others progress through the years. Leif Kjetil went on to build Napro Pharma and Asgeir as the R&D Director at Natural which later became the platform for Aker Biomarine’s krill project; Superba.
 
Throughout the winter of 2007 the discussions between them started to take the form of a new venture, a company that should be a small-scale, thus flexibleproduction facility with a heavy focus on R&D into new, healthy marine ingredients. This setup deemed ideal to take new products from idea all the way into commercialization.
 
Then in the spring of 2007 the concept had matured sufficiently and Leif Kjetil made the decision to go ahead with the new venture. Asgeir also decided to take the leap and joined marking 2007 as the official starting year of Pharma Marine AS.

The next task ahead was to identify the criteria for the all-important first products, key among these were;
  • The raw materials needed to come from a industry-unique, yet sustainable marine source, harvested using methods with no, or negligable environmental impact.
  • The raw materials needed to have a commercially viable and interesting fatty acid composition.
  • The raw materials should preferably also contain other interesting bioactive components.
With these criteria firmly established the search could commence, weeks and months were spent researching literature and scientific papers and analyzing all sorts of frozen, dried or fresh samples of marine biology. The search identified 3 species that deserved a more thorough look, among these were calamari, or Cephalopods which is the more correct scientific term.
 
After a round-the-world research trip that took Leif Kjetil and Asgeir across almost all continents, it was concluded that calamari fit all the criteria perfectly;
  • The fatty acid profiles of all three commercially viable calamari species, showed a prevalence of DHA to EPA of almost 20% DHA to 10% EPA, with DHA being the one fatty acid of increasing scientific focus and interest.
  • We would be the first company to bring Omega-3 concentrates based on Calamari raw materials into commercially viable production. This marine resource is harvested using very environmentally friendly unbaited hook-lines, then most of the specimen is used to make food for humans, leaving the trimmings to be transformed into Calamarine™.
  • As a stroke of pure luck the raw materials also contain a few other secrets which our R&D team is working diligently to extract. Please pay close attention to our partner-exclusive product pipeline for news in this regard.

Alongside this research the entire Pharma Marine team was assembled both in Norway and in the USA, a brand new state-of-the art production facility designed and built from scratch in Norway. Suppliers of raw material were identified and the flow of raw materials started from both Asia and South America to coincide with the start-up of our new factory in Norway. Production in the new factory started in May 2009.