Dan Murray is vice president of business development at Xsto Solutions, LLC, based in Morristown, NJ, but resides in Atlanta, GA. XSTO’s core focus is bringing a small number of new science-supported nutritional ingredients to the functional food and dietary supplement markets across North America. XSTO personnel have successfully and profitably launched new products, driving sales by acting as U.S.-based sales and marketing partners. XSTO has also partnered with small-to medium-sized international ingredient manufacturers to increase sales and marketing focus. Prior to becoming a partner in Xsto, Dan was responsible for bringing new supplement ingredients through the regulatory and commercialization process, as well as for sales and technical support of various vitamin product lines and other novel, branded dietary supplement and functional food ingredients. With more than 25 years of experience in the nutrition and food production business, he has worked with products ranging from meat and poultry, baking and beverages to enzyme and vitamin supplements. He has a degree in animal nutrition from the University of Kentucky and previously held sales, marketing and product management positions with Central Soya, Roche Vitamins, Rhodia Food, Lonza and InterHealth. He occasionally writes articles for various industry publications.
 
 
Health E-Insights: What is Xsto’s secret to continued success?
 
Mr. Murray: Xsto will continue to focus on our two core activities of business—one activity being to seek out, qualify and launch new science supported raw material ingredients and the other is to service the needs of our existing customers who are formulating dietary supplements and functional foods. If Xsto continues to deliver exciting, well supported product opportunities, we believe we will remain relevant and successful.
 
Health E-Insights: From where in the world may we see the emergence of the next new hot ingredient?
 
Mr. Murray: It’s difficult to predict where the next new ingredient will originate from. When we talk about hot new ingredients, we tend to first think of something previously unknown. On that truly new front, I would predict Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America as likely origins for exciting developments. Digging deeper I believe new ingredients may in fact come from novel and improved forms of previously known ingredients. Process discoveries and new technologies may allow an existing ingredient that was challenging to work previously to suddenly be more stable, more soluble, less expensive or simply taste better. In this situation, I believe new ingredients created by technical advancement will more than likely come from Europe or North America. 
 
Health E-Insights: Will new technology play a key role in the future of the supplement industry? If so, what might it be?
 
Mr. Murray: At Xsto, we believe technology that makes an ingredient user-friendly—including higher concentrations, higher purity, improved stability or taste—will play a huge difference in the future potential of that ingredient. New technology applied to active ingredients, both new and old, can and will be used for new and unique formulations giving the manufacturer and ultimately the consumer more choices.  
 
Health E-Insights: What motivates you?
 
Mr. Murray: Emotionally, improving people’s health and quality of life motivates us. We believe in providing efficacious ingredients to our manufacturing customers and consumers. In many cases, our condition-specific ingredients are as good or better than pharmaceutical alternatives in terms of efficacy, safety and side effects. From a professional stanpoint, we enjoy the launch phase of a new ingredient. It’s an exciting time because it’s like watching your baby grow and take their first steps—this is also very motivating.
 
Health E-Insights: What makes you laugh?
 
Mr. Murray: How do I answer this and not sound like a malcontent? When a prospective client tells you they know exactly what challenges lie ahead, it’s hard not to grin. We feel like we know our market well and there are certainly times when we don’t understand all the challenges for a particular offering, but the biggest challenge working with our manufacturer partners is managing expectations. Most launches takes longer and start slower than planned and this tends to put a crunch on capital resources. 
 
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