The dietary supplement Systolite is expected to be launched onto the UK market this year, with the product being ready for the European market by 2018.
It was presented to Norway’s minister for fisheries, Per Sandberg, at the Stella Polaris shrimp factory at Karvikhamn, Lenvik in March.
Almost two decades have passed since Asbjorn Gildbergy, in charge of Nofima research at the time, discovered special peptides in shrimp shells with an assumed blood pressure lowering effect.
“You might like to call it a by-product of by-product. We were working on extracting chitosan from shrimp shell,” said Mr Gildberg.
He explained: “In this process, large quantities of the protein went to waste. When the researchers added enzymes, in order to cleave the proteins in this residual raw material, high levels of the blood pressure reducing material was discovered.”
Since 2008, Marealis together with Nofima and the University of Tromso have been carrying out research, developing and scientifically documenting the blood pressure reducing effect of the product from shrimp shell.
Systolite comes from the scientific term for blood pressure, systolic pressure. The product was tested on 222 people; no negative side effects were registered other than five people who reported slightly upset stomachs.
Production will initially start at Nofima’s national facility for bioprocessing, Biotep in Kaldfjord, Tromso.
The long term plan is to build a factory for the production at Stella Prolaris’ plant, the sole owner of Marealis AS.
“The shrimp industry was almost about to be put on the list of endangered species. There is no denying that there have been some lean years. Now we’re at beginning of a product’s success,” Hans-Ove Semmingsen, chairman of Stall Polaris AS and Marealis AS.
In Europe and the United States, between 20-25% of the population are currently taking blood pressure medication.
