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01-09-2026  |  93 x

From niche research to an industrial growth market

Just a few years ago, “longevity” was a term confined to research labs and California startups. Today, it has become a consumer goods segment experiencing double-digit growth. According to a market study by The Business Research Company, the market for longevity supplements – that is, dietary supplements aimed at healthy aging and cellular function – alone is projected to rise from $8.8 billion in 2025 to $14.3 billion in 2030. If we broaden the market definition to include anti-aging medications, diagnostics, and wellness, forecasts suggest that market volumes will exceed $60 billion over the coming decade.

The most important driver is demographics: The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the number of people aged 60 and older worldwide will rise from about one billion in 2020 to approximately 1.4 billion in 2030. Added to this is a shift in mindset. Consumers are increasingly investing in prevention rather than treatment; they are thinking in terms of healthy life years (“healthspan”) rather than just lifespan.

For the process industry, it is not so much the medical hype that is of interest as the question behind it: How are these products actually made? This is where things get exciting for visitors and exhibitors at Powtech Technopharm.

Manufacturing routes for high-value active ingredients

Four classes of active ingredients dominate the market. NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) is a precursor to the coenzyme NAD⁺, which plays a central role in cellular metabolism. Spermidine, found in wheat germ and soybeans, is considered a driver of the cell’s own “garbage disposal” system.

Urolithin A, which is produced in the gut during the breakdown of pomegranate and walnut compounds, is said to trigger the renewal of the cell’s “powerhouses,” the mitochondria. Added to this is the rapidly growing group of senolytics, which are designed to specifically remove old, non-dividing cells from tissue, as well as other NAD⁺ boosters.

What these substances have in common from a process engineering perspective is not their biochemistry, but their production logic. All four represent a shift away from an unreliable, microbiome- or plant-dependent “natural” formation toward controlled, reproducible industrial manufacturing of defined quality. And all four ultimately undergo the same basic process engineering operations that constitute the core business of Powtech Technopharm: chemical or biocatalytic reaction, separation and purification, drying into a storage-stable solid, as well as formulation and filling usually as a powder, granule, or capsule.

A clear example is urolithin A: The substance is produced in the human body only if the appropriate gut flora is present – which is not the case for a large portion of the population. Anyone who still wants to reliably offer urolithin A in a defined dose and purity must manufacture it industrially, independent of the microbiome. The Swiss manufacturer Amazentis has described to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) a clearly specified manufacturing process for its product Mitopure, featuring high purity urolithin A (purity >97 %), defined limits for impurities, and a final drying step to produce the powder. What began as a metabolic coincidence thus becomes a standardized ingredient in powder form, exactly the kind of challenge for which plant engineers provide process and handling solutions.

Three Paths to the Same Molecule

The process engineering challenge becomes particularly clear when considering NMN. Here, three manufacturing routes are competing in parallel for industrial dominance. Classic chemical synthesis relies on aggressive reagents and precise temperature and humidity control, a complex and expensive process. Microbial fermentation uses genetically engineered bacteria but still struggles with low yields and the problem that common host organisms produce endotoxins, which must be laboriously removed.

The most promising approach at present is enzymatic cascade biocatalysis: multiple tailor-made enzymes convert inexpensive starting materials into the target molecule in a single reaction vessel. The advantages from a process engineering perspective are obvious: mild reaction conditions, high purity, and an aqueous system without the need for complex moisture control. This approach, which marks the actual leap in innovation, is explored in greater depth in a separate article in the Industry Insights section of Powtech Technopharm.

In the case of spermidine, extraction from wheat germ, fermentation, and chemical synthesis compete with one another – a textbook example of how the same target substance can be produced via completely different process chains. Which route prevails depends not only on chemistry but also on cost, scalability, and regulatory approval.

The Real Bottleneck: Purification and Formulation

For machinery and plant manufacturers, the opportunity lies not only in the reaction itself but also in the steps that follow. Purification – filtration, chromatography, separation – accounts for a significant portion of manufacturing costs in fermentative and biocatalytic processes, often 15 to 25 percent, and is considered a key bottleneck when scaling up from the laboratory to the production scale. Interesting developments are currently emerging in this area: continuous chromatography and membrane-based separation processes promise significant cost advantages over traditional batch processes. Modular, flexibly configurable plant designs shorten the time to market.

Formulation is at least as important. A highly pure active ingredient is of little use if it breaks down in the digestive tract before it can take effect. That is why techniques are employed that are at the heart of Powtech Technopharm: spray drying and microencapsulation for stabilization, liposomal encapsulation for better absorption, along with gentle processes such as spray cooling for temperature-sensitive substances. Wall materials, particle size distribution, flowability, and compressibility for tableting are classic challenges of mechanical and thermal process engineering – only now applied to a new, high-margin product class.

Longevity active ingredients are high-quality solids that must be handled, dosed, mixed, granulated, dried, and filled under GxP conditions, often in small batches, with high purity requirements, and sometimes under containment, because the substances are valuable and, in some cases, highly active. As a result, this topic addresses nearly the entire spectrum of exhibitors at the trade show: from reactor and fermenter construction to centrifuges, filters, and drying systems, as well as mixing, granulation, and tableting technology, containment solutions, and analytics.

Regulations Set Limits

Despite the sense of optimism, a sober assessment is warranted. The regulatory framework in Europe is demanding: NMN, for example, is classified as a “novel food” in the EU and cannot be readily marketed without the appropriate authorization, whereas spermidine-rich wheat germ extract is already approved. For manufacturers, this means that the choice of process and regulatory approval are closely linked. Health-related advertising claims are strictly regulated. And the market forecasts, as enticing as they may sound, are primarily based on commercial studies using varying methodologies – they indicate a trend, not a certainty.

It is this blend of genuine growth and ongoing industrialization that makes the topic attractive to exhibitors and visitors at Powtech Technopharm. Longevity is not a mature market where processes have long since been optimized, but rather a field in which active ingredient manufacturers and plant engineers are still jointly developing their solutions. Those exhibiting in Nuremberg or wandering through the halls will find here less of a trendy topic and more of a concrete challenge: turning promising biochemistry into reproducible, safe, and affordable products. This is, in the best sense of the word, a process engineering challenge.