Supplement Source Podcast
Supplement Source Podcast
Trailblazer Spotlight: Andrew Shao
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In this special episode of Supplement Source, host Jeff Ventura sits down with Andrew Shao of Niagen Bioscience, a nominee for the 2026 Annette Dickinson Trailblazer Award, to reflect on a career spent at the intersection of science, policy and the dietary supplement industry.
Shao shares how Annette Dickinson helped launch his career at CRN, where he worked alongside industry leaders including John Hathcock to advance science-based approaches for establishing safe upper intake levels for vitamins, minerals and other bioactives. He also discusses how those efforts influenced global regulatory thinking and helped shape resources such as the Vitamin and Mineral Safety Handbook.
The conversation turns to how the supplement industry has evolved, including greater investment in science, manufacturing standards and post-market surveillance, as well as the ongoing challenge posed by less responsible actors. Looking ahead, Shao explains why he believes NAD could follow a trajectory similar to vitamin D, with growing research and awareness potentially elevating healthy aging into a broader public health conversation.
It’s a conversation about scientific progress, regulatory evolution and what it means to blaze a trail in the responsible nutrition industry.
About the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN)
The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), founded in 1973 and based in Washington, D.C., is the leading trade association representing the dietary supplement and functional food industry. Bringing together manufacturers, ingredient suppliers, and service providers, CRN unites its member companies around a shared commitment to science, transparency, and responsible business practices—advancing a strong, credible marketplace that supports consumer health and industry growth.
In an increasingly complex regulatory and media environment, CRN serves as the industry’s front line—shaping science-based policy, defending market access, and countering misinformation. Through strategic advocacy, self-regulatory leadership, voluntary guidelines, and evidence-based communications, CRN ensures that responsible companies are recognized, protected, and positioned to innovate and compete. Learn more at crnusa.org and follow @CRN_Supplements on X and LinkedIn.
Please note the Council for Responsible Nutrition, CRN, does not endorse any guest appearing on this podcast or any products or services they may discuss. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of CRN. Thank you and enjoy the episode.
SPEAKER_00You are listening to Supplement Source, the official podcast of the Council for Responsible Nutrition. And now your host, Jeff Ventura.
SPEAKER_03Hello, and thank you for listening to Supplement Source. My name is Jeff Ventura, and I'm the Vice President of Communications here at the Council for Responsible Nutrition. It is a pleasure to be joined today by none other than Andrew Shao of Niogen Bioscience. Andrew, uh, you are a frequent guest on our program, and we we love to have you back. How are you?
SPEAKER_02I'm doing well, and I always enjoy being here with you, Jeff. It's always a great conversation. So thank you for having me back.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I listen, I know you're humble pie a little bit about this. We are here for a special reason, and that is that you're one of this year's Annette Dickison Trailblazer Award nominees, and we want to get to know our nominees a little bit and share uh some of their background with our listeners. First and foremost, I think you actually knew Annette Dickison, did you not? Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_02I think uh I have the distinction of having been hired by Annette. Wow. Uh many years ago. Back in 2005, actually, Annette hired me to be the vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs at CRN. And something that really I'm eternally grateful for for a number of reasons. I mean, that experience launched my career into the stratosphere. Experience I had at CRN for those six years I was there was like none other that I've had in my career. And I think back to when I first met Annette together with uh one of your predecessors, Judy Blatman. Oh, yes. And Annette met me in a Pittsburgh hotel and interviewed me for this role. And oh gosh, I have so many stories about that, but we'll keep it brief. It was a wonderful experience uh meeting the two of them there. And uh Annette ended up hiring me back then. I had the privilege to work under her for a short period of time. Of course, she was transitioning out as president. Steve Mister was transitioning in, but I still had the uh the privilege to work alongside Annette for years after that, as she remained a consultant for SRS.
SPEAKER_03Let's talk a little bit about where you've been through the lens of this nomination. So the nomination uh is for you know innovation, impact, scientific advancement. Um why do you think you were nominated? And this is gonna challenge your your humility, your humility a little bit. But and I mean, in some of this, I think you know, uh you've answered a little bit there. You've been around for a while. You've been actually doing quite you know quite a lot within this industry of a pretty long pedigree. Walk us through a little bit about where you've been. Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_02Um I started my career uh after graduating from uh Tufts uh university. I started uh in uh Des Moines, Iowa with a wonderful team uh over there at Kemen. That was an amazing experience. I had the opportunity to learn a lot about, of course, lutein and carotenoids, but that's where it started in investing in shaping the uh environment and the science environment and the policy environment and so forth. That's where that started because the company is very much invested in trying to grow that category and grow awareness of eye health for eye health and for luteen specifically. Uh, and there was a lot of outreach, external outreach, that I had the fortune of being a part of. But it was really when I arrived at CRN and had the opportunity to work with folks like Annette and also the late John Hathcock, who was a mentor of mine. And we were undertaking really a global initiative to try to affect how upper levels were established for vitamins and minerals, essential nutrients, even bioactives. Very controversial topic, even to this day, on how to set those limits and what regulatory maximums should be. And of course, uh, in some markets, very conservatively, they would be arbitrarily set, not based on science, but based on convenience and so, or some arbitrary number that would be kept very low. And CRN uh was a leader along with other organizations like AyADSA in trying to lobby to raise those levels according to science, based on science. I worked a lot with John Hathcock. We published a number of peer-reviewed review articles establishing higher upper levels for certain nutrients, like vitamin D, for example, and bioactives as well, amino acids and so forth. We did a lot of publications, and those publications turned into lobbying efforts, if you will, through IATSA to globalize the methods that we used, the levels that we arrived at. I'd like to think during that time that John and I had a tremendous impact, not just on specific how specific nutrients or bioactives were viewed, but the methodological approach, the framework that should be used to uh establish those values was very much based on what John had come up with and that I had the fortune to be a part of and to sort of continue uh on. And that was done at CRN. The publications were when I had the fortune to transition over to Herbalife, which is a global company, also invested in shaping policy and regulation around the world. I got even more involved in AYATSA. I had the opportunity to chair the scientific committee at AYATSA and take the same work and be part of the export process of exporting the framework, the scientific framework, in addition to the levels by speaking to governments all around the world in South America and in Southeast Asia. I had the fortune to be part of those efforts through AATSA. I think for an industry contribution, I think that that's probably my greatest contribution in helping this industry is taking a science-based approach to upper levels and maximums, which is a highly credible approach, as opposed to the conservative and arbitrary approach of a one times RDA or three times the RDA should be the limit.
SPEAKER_03But is the vitamin and mineral safety handbook, is that sort of a direct byproduct of this work? It is, it is.
SPEAKER_02And it's something that John started, uh, I think he published the first one maybe in 2002 or four, something like that. But it's very much based on that methodological framework that he established, which is to try to base those values more on human data than animal toxicology data. So the the different uh editions of the vitamin Mineral Safety Handbook have very much been based on that work.
SPEAKER_03I'm interested in how the industry has changed in your eyes over the years. So from the time that you were sort of in that hotel lobby with the net versus you know now, well, what is what has changed for you and what is the what does that change mean for the industry, you think?
SPEAKER_02What's a Yeah, I think the the industry has become much more sophisticated and much more informed. Um certainly bigger. Yeah, well, and and uh and it it has grown tremendously, but I think the the level of expertise and sophistication, I would say infused into the responsible side of the industry has grown tremendously, and I think it's been uh uh just great to see that. Um the investment in in science and technology, supply chain manufacturing, I mean the manufacturing standards that we have today and that are uh practiced today by responsible companies is so far advanced from it was when I first started out in my career because uh the FDA hadn't published GMP uh regular the GMP regulation yet. Paying close attention to things like post-market surveillance, adverse event collection and reporting. Again, not something that was paid a whole lot of attention to back then. And now all these companies, they're either using a third party or they have folks in-house that are dedicated to this function. So very pleased to see that. On the other hand, I think the growth of the industry has also been populated by a lot of unscrupulous companies, have also come in with the advent of the internet and and social media and so forth. And I think that that has counterbalanced some of the improvements that I've seen and and witnessed. I think it's been counterbalanced by that.
SPEAKER_03Well, and we continue. I mean, we saw a headline in the New York Times about influencers and supplements, and so this is this is like a continued issue that dogs the legitimate side of the business, shall we say? Well, that's that's interesting stuff. The other question that I had for you is what excites you about the future?
SPEAKER_02What gets me excited is very closely related to what I do today. And as you know, our world revolves around this coenzyme we call NAD. I have this vision of NAD following in the footsteps of something like vitamin D. If you can look back 20 years, 20 years ago, where the vitamin D research was and how it snowballed with research, media interest, consumer interest. Now everyone uh knows about vitamin D and everyone takes vitamin D, and policymakers have uh increased in many, many countries around the world have increased the the RDA for vitamin D as a result of all of this. It became an area of public health urgency to address vitamin D deficiency uh around the world. I envision the same thing happening for NAD eventually. It is something that will be also treated with the same public health urgency that as we age, uh our NAD levels decline and it's essential for healthy aging. And therefore, there will be a public health push to make sure NAD levels are maintained as much as possible as we age, particularly with the world aging as rapidly as it does. There are many things that have to come together in order for that vision to come true, and I think we're still early on, but I do see that, and that's what excites me when science and policy and regulation converge in a way that benefits the consumer first and foremost, but then also benefits all of us who work so hard in the industry. That would be the next example of where science and policy and regulation converge together to address a critical public health issue, which I think it will become.
SPEAKER_03It'll be interesting to see if the trail that you've been blazing, the trailhead, winds up where you think it will wind up. It's exciting stuff to say the least. Andrew, we are wishing you uh the very best rooting for you in terms of your your nomination. Excited to excited to uh see where where this goes in terms of a potential win for you as much as you're you're humble about about it. Uh we're we're happy we're happy that you're in the mix and we we really enjoy, of course, having you uh back on supplement source. Thank you so much, Andrew Show.
SPEAKER_02I'm grateful. Uh we'll let the chips fall where they may, but I do appreciate the opportunity. So thank you, Jeff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, thanks for thanks for coming on. We appreciate it. Okay.