The astaxanthin ingredient supplier was crowned winner of the Editors’ Award for Infant and Child Nutrition Initiative in NutraIngredients-Asia Awards 2025.
The awards ceremony took place at Bangkok last Wednesday (September 17), where 17 awards were presented to innovative, commercially successful and clinically-backed functional ingredients, supplements, and speciality initiatives.
AstaReal was presented the Editors’ Award for Infant and Child Nutrition Initiative for its project “AstaReal Natural Astaxanthin for Children Digital Eye Strain.”
The initiative was on how the company has completed and showed positive results in what is said to be the world’s first clinical trial on astaxanthin and its effects on digital eye health in children.
Specifically, the 12-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 64 children from India showed that astaxanthin supplementation could reduce both chronic and acute digital eye strain as compared to placebo.
This adds on to existing findings on astaxanthin’s antioxidative benefits, and how it could support cardiovascular health, cognitive function, join, muscle, and skin radiance.
The judges said they were impressed with how the entry tackled an issue that was less talked about in the children’s health space, where the focus tended to be on cognitive, bone, and height growth. The company also showed resolve by investing in a first-of-its-kind clinical trial that could shape future product innovation.
AstaReal emerged as the winner against two other finalists, namely AdriVital Liquid Calcium Drink and China infant formula firm Junlebao’s Youcui Baoai.
Speaking to NutraIngredients the next day after the ceremony at Vitafoods Asia, the company said that the positive clinical results and the award would open doors for a new segment creation, where astaxanthin could become the ingredient of choice for kids eye health.
This is because while astaxanthin is effective for adults, there has been a lack of clinical evidence on its benefits for children, which also means that the ingredient is not yet widely used in kids supplements.
The company believes that the doors are now opened for creating new kids supplements using astaxanthin.
“What we can do with this award is to further add value and then expand our partnering brands’ product line-up and then create more valuable products for a different market segment - in this case, kids eye health,” said Dr. Vincent Wood, president of AstaReal Pte Ltd.
This also marks a new milestone for the company.
“The winning entry was for us, a milestone, because while it is known that astaxanthin is safe and effective, it is unclear if it is effective for kids.
“This is why we want to first of all, test it and compete in this award, so as to show that not only our ingredient is effective in adults, but it is also effective in children that are still growing and are facing challenges when it comes to digital eye fatigue,” said Carlo Alberto Muratore, assistant manager, International Sales & Marketing Department, Life Science Sales Group, Fuji Chemical Industries - parent company of AstaReal.
Products innovation
Astaxanthin can be used as a single product or formulated with synergistic ingredients like lutein to support eye health among kids and adults.
Dosage formats wise, it could be used in a range of products from soft gels, to two-piece capsules, tablets, water-soluble powder, water-soluble emulsion and more, said Muratore.
Second clinical trial in Malaysia
AstaReal has embarked on a second clinical trial to further validate the benefits of astaxanthin for kids eye health.
As compared to the first clinical trial, this trial will last for a longer period at six months, while using the same dosage of 4-mg astaxanthin daily for the intervention group.
“There’s some very interesting indicators that we would like to investigate further.
“In our first clinical trial, there were interesting data showing a slowing down of myopic progression rates, which was mind-blowing, and we wanted to answer this really big question: ‘could it really help in slowing down myopic progression?’” said Dr. Wood.
“If so, we will be the first nutrition solution to take care of this,” he said.
The trial will take place in Malaysia and the idea came from an eye clinic chain that the company has been engaging with.
“We were talking to one of the largest eye clinics in Malaysia, and they specialize in kids health.
“They’ve developed several supplement SKUs for eye health, but to strengthen their marketing, to get stronger health claims, we were connected to a principal investigator specializing in clinical studies, and we then took it from there,” he said.
