Our Platform

Food as the first and best medicine

VitaKey's technology platforms provide for a wide range of advanced delivery mechanisms triggered by various physiological or environmental stimuli. Our technology delivers targeted and time-controlled release of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), macronutrients (proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids), probiotics, prebiotics, nutraceuticals, antioxidants and flavors with excellent bioavailability.

Under an exclusive licensing arrangement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Langer Lab, VitaKey is offering strategic research development partnerships and license agreements to qualified licensees for the use of its revolutionary new technology platforms that enables precision delivery of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), macronutrients (proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids), probiotics, prebiotics, nutraceuticals, antioxidants and flavors — ensuring protection throughout processing, manufacturing, storage, ingestion and digestion, without altering their taste or texture.

VitaKey’s technologies can be applied at every link of the food chain. It offers limitless applications for precision nutrition in food and beverages for humans ranging from infant to elderly, including customized diets, as well as seeds and agriculture, pet food and animal feed. Additionally, the targeted and time-controlled release delivery technologies can enhance desired flavors and aromas as well as suppress unpleasant tastes and odors.

Precision Delivery^® of Nutrition

VitaKey’s targeted bioactive in the food manufacturing process launches a new era in precision delivery — providing the right nutrients, in the right amount, delivered to the right place, at the right time. Until now, nutrients in conventional foods degrade during processing, manufacturing, storage, cooking, ingestion and digestion due to environmental factors such as heat, moisture, oxygen and light. This results in the ingestion of degraded nutrients, thereby limiting absorption and the health benefits of natural foods. To overcome this, a common strategy is to ‘over-fortify’ food to meet dietary standards. With the VitaKey platform, overfortification to meet dietary standards is eliminated. Through precision delivery, new ways to extend their benefit, prolong their time of action, or increase their bioavailability all become possible.

Developed in the MIT laboratory of engineer, inventor, scientist and entrepreneur Dr. Robert S. Langer — a founding father of drug delivery and controlled-release technology — the VitaKey platform began with the preservation of 11 out of 11 different micronutrients (iron, zinc, niacin, biotin, and vitamins A, B12, C, and D). As many as four micronutrients at once can be combined in a single particle. Today, VitaKey’s platform can be applied to micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), macronutrients (proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids), probiotics, prebiotics, nutraceuticals, antioxidants and flavors with excellent bioavailability.

Protecting nutrients essential to health and wellness

Recent research by I. Chiodini and colleagues has shown the importance of sufficient vitamin D levels in the fight against COVID-19. A meta-analysis of over one million subjects found that severe deficiency and insufficiency of vitamin D were all associated with increased chances of ICU admission and mortality for SARS-CoV-2 patients. Further research by J. Hahn and colleagues on the daily supplementation of vitamin D in over 25,000 consumers aged 50 years and older for 5 years was shown to statistically reduce the incidence of autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, autoimmune thyroid disease, psoriasis, and all others by 22%. With precision delivery of VitaKey vitamin D, consumers would be better prepared to fight COVID-19 and autoimmune diseases with a fortified immune system.

VitaKey can also provide delivery technology for probiotics. These beneficial live cultures — essential to the maintenance of a healthy microbiome — can now be added to a variety of foods and preserved at every stage of preparation. The protective technology not only preserves them in combination with other foods but permits them to be used in conjunction with pharmaceutical antibiotics, enabling treatment without side effects.

Macronutrients, including proteins and amino acids, can be stabilized and delivered to provide enhanced nutrition and immune support for children, seniors, athletes, and those with impaired immune systems due to cancer or diseases.

With VitaKey, consumers can enjoy the benefits of vital nutrients without making drastic changes to their eating habits or following a complicated schedule of vitamin pills, dietary supplements, or burdensome macronutrient regimens to supply the body with energy. Adding potent and durable micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), macronutrients (proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids), probiotics, prebiotics, nutraceuticals, antioxidants and flavors to food and beverage manufacturing can dramatically improve the quality of the foods we eat and enhance the health and wellness and boost the immunity of men, women and children at every stage of life.

Emergent challenges with food security and resilience can be addressed. VitaKey’s technology provides solutions for reducing food waste by mitigating over fortification and extending shelf-stability, for reducing malnutrition by improving the health benefits of food and beverages through stabilization and targeted precision delivery, and for improving sustainability by optimizing crop growth. With VitaKey's customizable solutions, a limited amount of nutrients can be used to nourish a larger global population to help ensure the health and wellness of the entire world for years to come.

Chiodini I., et al. "Vitamin D status and SARS-Cov-2 infection and COVID-19 clinical outcomes." Front Public Health Vol 9, Dec. 2021.

Hahn J., et al. "Vitamin D and marine omega 3 fatty acid supplementation and incident autoimmune disease: VITAL randomized controlled trial." BMJ 376:e066452, Jan. 2022.

Regulatory status

The VitaKey technology is legally compliant. In June 2018, JECFA (The Joint FAO-WHO Expert Committee Report on Food Additives) concluded that BMC is “not a safety concern” and does not need an acceptable daily intake (ADI) limitation when used as a coating or glazing agent for solid food supplements, for foods for special medical purposes, and for micronutrient fortification of conventional food. In March 2019, the Codex Alimentarius Committee on Food Additives concurred with the JECFA safety evaluation of BMC, and broadened the uses to all categories of food. These two reports provide independent determination for the commercial use of BMC in all categories of food without limitation. In addition, VitaKey has developed a proprietary library of special formulations featuring natural-based materials which have similar properties and protection to BMC.