Do you trust your supplement brand?
What guarantees do you have that what appears on the label is what you’ll find inside the tub and only those ingredients?
What facility is it made in?
How clean are those facilities and who audits their manufacturing plants and processes?
As a passionate supporter of multi-discipline sports and athletes at every level, Biogen is committed to providing products of the highest quality and goes to great lengths to ensure that any products consumers place in their bodies comply to the absolute best standards possible.
Quality at the forefront
“As a brand, we take the professional reputation of the athletes we support as seriously as we do our own, and we do not condone the use of banned or prohibited substances in competitive sport,” explains Brandon Fairweather, Brand Manager at Biogen.
“We are also obsessed with ensuring that what we put on the shelf is best in class, using various testing bodies available to hold us and our suppliers accountable. Outside of professional sport, the testing adds a significant element of quality assurance to the non-competing consumer too, a lesser-known component of the testing programme, albeit of equal importance”
Certified free from prohibited substances
While Biogen does not formulate any product with banned substances at a development level, the brand takes additional steps and goes to great lengths to mitigate any perceived risks at the manufacturer level by putting further checks in place to ensure athletes and consumers alike can take supplement products with confidence.
“With that in mind, we have a responsibility to offer competitive and amateur athletes alike a range of products that undergo ongoing testing to ensure they are free from banned or prohibited substances,” continues Brandon.
To meet the promise of providing athletes with supplements that are certified free from banned or prohibited substances and do not contravene the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) Prohibited Substances list, Biogen partners with LGC Limited in the UK, which offers one of the best risk management and certification options in the world, including their ground-breaking Informed Choice and Informed Sport programmes.
The implications (and benefits) for professional sport
Informed Sport is a global quality assurance programme for sports supplements and nutritional products established by LGC with the support of sports governing bodies and key players in the supplement sector.
The certification programme provides assurance to athletes that products carrying the Informed Sport mark have been tested for prohibited substances and manufactured to high quality standards. This programme offers the highest level of assurance as every batch of a certified product undergoes testing before it hits the market.
Products enrolled in the Informed Sport programme are ideal for elite athletes and those subject to strict doping controls, as these products have been tested for a broad range of substances that are banned in sports, using highly sensitive techniques. LGC carries out ongoing product testing on the sports nutrition and food products in the Biogen Informed Sport range.
“Enrolling products in the Informed Sport programme demonstrates Biogen’s further commitment to quality assurance,” says Brandon.
“As part of the process audits, if any manufacturer we work with so much as changes a preferred supplier or packer of any sachets or components, we consider it a process breach and they are, in fact, contractually obliged to notify us of any changes before making them.”
Informed Choice is a global quality assurance and dietary supplement testing programme for dietary supplements. The presence of the Informed Choice quality mark on product packaging demonstrates to consumers that the product has been regularly tested for prohibited substances in certified dietary supplements and that the product was made in an environment with quality systems appropriate for the stringent demands of dietary supplements and nutrition manufacturing.
Informed Sport stamp of approval
When athletes buy supplements, Biogen recommends choosing those that carry the ‘Informed Sport’ logo. Products carrying the ‘Informed Choice’ certification logo are ideal for consumers in the broader market who are not necessarily competing in professional sport.
“Athletes can rest assured that products bearing the Informed Sport logo have passed a rigorous certification process and are made to the highest quality standards,” adds Brandon.
The lab’s methodology meets the exacting requirements of various regulating bodies and covers all formulation types, from powders, capsules and tablets to gels, bars and liquids. Every product carrying the Informed-Sport logo undergoes rigorous testing for more than 250 banned substances by LGC’s world-class anti-doping labs, using ISO 17025 accredited methods.
LGC screens every batch of a certified product for banned substances at a part-per-billion levels, and all manufacturing processes must meet strict quality control standards, including GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice).
“The Informed Sport programme is the gold standard worldwide,” affirms Brandon. “With Informed Sport, athletes can train and compete with confidence knowing that their reputation is in safe hands.”
For more information, visit www.informed-sport.com or biogen.co.za/competing-athletes/
Shop the complete range of Biogen Informed Sport and Informed Choice products here.
