Advanced BioNutrition Corp. was founded in 2001, having as its roots technology developed sustainable aquaculture nutrition and fish health.

In 2002 ABN became the worldwide exclusive licensee of DSM’s patents pertaining to the world wide use of algal DHA in all animal applications and then proceeded to test this material for practical application. In 2004 the first environmentally friendly, totally vegetarian-grown shrimp were produced in research farms operated by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources using the ABN technology.

Working with top academic institutions around the world, the ABN team developed new understandings of the critical nature of sustainable nutrition for farmed animals as well as companion and performance animals. This led to a number of product launches including DHA Gold and AquaGrow Gold®. In 2007 these products and technologies were licensed to DSM’s new Animal Science Division so that ABN could concentrate on the development of protection and delivery technologies for sensitive bioactives including vaccines, probiotics, enzymes and vitamins for commercial applications in animal, and agricultural industries.

Recognizing a critical need for improved shelf stability and post gastric delivery of gut-friendly bacteria (Probiotics), ABN scientists aggressively pursued a developmental program to protect and deliver bioactives so they could be effectively utilized. The discovered solutions have become a part of the Company’s flagship technology–Targeted Delivery Systems - commercially introduced for the first time at the Institute of Food Technology Annual Meeting in 2008. This enabling technology allows for probiotic applications outside of the cold supply chain, with no need for an expensive over-formulation or any sacrifice in the product shelf life. The efficacy of technology to preserve the probiotic potency was effectively demonstrated in several commercial food applications including infant formulas, drinking powders and spreads as well as in various animal feed applications.

The patented Targeted Delivery Systems represent a revolutionary protection and delivery concept, originally designed for probiotics, but now recognized as a tool for the protection and delivery of many types of labile biological materials ranging from small molecules (e.g., vaccines, enzymes, vitamins, essential oils, pigments, or growth promoters/inhibitors) to whole cell microorganisms (e.g., viruses, phages, bacteria, yeast and fungi). Working together with an aquatic animal vaccine company in Chile, ABN scientists developed an innovative Targeted Delivery Systems technology that converted the company’s injectable bacterin vaccine for salmon into an orally delivered vaccine. In early 2009, this new oral vaccine, which helps to alleviate a major disease control problem in the salmon industry, was approved for commercial use in Chile. With a business team including engineers and scientists working exclusively on the development and scale up of new applications for the Targeted Delivery Systems, that company produced over 2 billion doses of the oral vaccine just in the last several years. This enabling technology maintains a robust immune protection against the devastating disease when it needed the most - during the final growth phase of salmons in open-sea cages.

Advanced BioNutrition has recently completed sale of its assets in the Animal Health and Nutrition Fields and will therefore in the future only undertake projects in this area under a services agreement with the acquirer.

From a small group of visionary scientists with a focus on health and nutrition and a passion for environmental sustainability, ABN has grown into a diversified provider of solutions in areas ranging from meeting nutritional and immunological challenges in  delivering protected bioactives and live microorganisms for various applications in human health and nutrition, food safety and crop protection products, including on-seed coating of bioactive microbes with extended shelf life potency. Throughout its history, ABN has proudly led with strong science-based solutions that have been followed with innovative business development to commercialize products and technologies that today are financially sustainable and environmentally responsible, thereby providing a better future for the world and for our children.