In the span of four months, three supplement brands made headlines that the entire industry should be studying. Different companies. Different categories. Different deal structures.

But look closer and a pattern emerges: the brands commanding the biggest valuations are the ones that invested in science.

The three deals at a glance

Full sourcing for every figure is in the Sources list at the end of this article.

Trust is the asset being acquired

When P&G announced the Thorne deal, the industry press didn't describe it as a bet on gummies, packaging, or influencer marketing. It was framed, repeatedly, as a bet on science-backed supplements. Thorne built its reputation on clinically validated, practitioner-trusted products, many of which carry NSF Certified for Sport marks, and on being recommended by name in clinicians' offices. That's what a $3.8 billion price tag was attached to.

Think about what P&G actually bought. Not just revenue. Not just a customer list. They bought a brand that doctors recommend and consumers don't second-guess.

Grüns is remembered as a marketing story, and it is a great one. But listen to how the acquirer described the asset. Announcing the deal, Unilever's Wellbeing CEO Jostein Solheim credited its "focused portfolio of science-backed products that people genuinely enjoy, trust, and consistently use." The buyer's own framing puts the science next to the taste, not behind it.

IM8 tells the same story from the growth side. Its flagship product earned NSF Certified for Sport certification within weeks of the brand's launch, and it has scaled to over 50 million servings delivered, an order every 27 seconds by the company's own count. When General Catalyst committed $1 billion to fuel its customer acquisition, they were underwriting a simple belief: this brand's customers stick around. Retention like that is earned, and substantiation is a big part of how you earn it. Notice, too, what the financing was designed to protect. Prenetics, IM8's parent, said the structure was chosen partly to preserve its balance sheet for product innovation and clinical research. Even the capital stack treats the science as core.

The market is moving toward proof

And it's moving further in this direction, not away from it.

What clinical research actually looks like in 2026

We hear that objection constantly, and every part of it is outdated.

Your customers may not read studies, but they read claims, and increasingly, so do the algorithms and AI tools standing between you and them. A brand that can say "clinically shown to improve sleep quality" with real data behind it is playing a different game than one that says "supports restful sleep*" with an asterisk.

The cost equation has changed just as much. The mental model most founders carry is the pharmaceutical trial: multi-year, seven figures, site visits, a binder of case report forms. That's no longer the only way legitimate evidence gets made. Modern decentralized studies recruit participants remotely across the country, run under IRB-approved protocols, and capture what used to require a clinic visit from the participant's daily life instead: continuous sleep, heart rate variability, and activity data from wearables, at-home blood biomarker testing, and validated questionnaires with decades of use behind them. Participants take the product in the real conditions your customers will, which is exactly the context your claim has to survive. Studies like this run in weeks to months, at a fraction of historical cost, and the data is objective rather than a memory of how last week felt.

Match the study to the claim

Clinical research isn't one thing. It's a ladder, and each rung buys you something different.

1. Consumer perception study. Structured self-report from real users at scale. Fast and inexpensive, and it supports "users reported" claims and tells you what benefits people actually notice. What it cannot do is substantiate an objective efficacy claim on its own. Know that going in, and use it for what it's for: speed, signal, and sharper marketing language.
2. Single-arm study. Every participant takes the product, and you measure before and after, ideally with objective endpoints like wearable metrics or blood biomarkers alongside the surveys. This gets you real before-and-after outcome data: effect size estimates, dose and duration learnings, and the groundwork to design a bigger study well. Without a control group it can't isolate cause, so it's a signal-generator and a stepping stone, not the finish line.
3. Randomized controlled trial. A control group, randomization, and blinding where feasible. This is the strongest substantiation a claim can have, and it's the design reviewers, retailers, and regulators weight most. Decentralized delivery has pulled RCTs within reach of brands that could never have funded the traditional version.

What the FTC guidance asks for

If the point of your study is supporting a claim, there is already a published reference for what that evidence should look like. The FTC's Health Products Compliance Guidance describes what it expects competent and reliable scientific evidence to look like: a control group, randomization and blinding where feasible, endpoints pre-specified before the data arrives, validated measures, sufficient duration, and all outcomes reported rather than just the ones that hit. Designing to those principles from the start is easier than retrofitting them later, and it is worth knowing how to read a research proposal against that list before you commission anything, because the study you run becomes part of your evidence base however it comes out.

What this means for your brand

If you're building a supplement or wellness brand right now, here is where to start.

1. Pick your hero product and study it. You don't need a research program across your whole catalog. One well-designed study on your flagship product changes what you can say everywhere: packaging, ads, retail pitches, investor decks.
2. Match the study to the claim you want. The ladder above is the map. Perception for speed and signal, single-arm for before-and-after outcomes, RCT for the strongest substantiation. These are different tools for different stages, so start where you are.
3. Make the evidence visible. A study buried in a PDF does nothing. The winning brands put their research front and center: on product pages, in creative, in earned media.
4. Think of it as an asset, not an expense. Marketing spend evaporates the moment you stop. A clinical study compounds. It strengthens every claim, every channel, every conversation with a retailer or investor, forever.

The window is open

Thorne's journey from a roughly $525 million public valuation in 2021 to a $3.8 billion acquisition in 2026 didn't happen because the supplement market got easier. It happened because the market started paying a premium for proof, and most brands still don't have any.

That's the opportunity. The majority of your competitors are still competing on flavor, price, and packaging. Evidence is the differentiator that's still cheap relative to what it's worth, and the acquirers, investors, and consumers of 2026 are all telling you the same thing about where value is heading.

Reputable helps supplement and wellness brands run clinical studies, from consumer perception studies to randomized controlled trials, using wearables, at-home testing, and real-world biometric data. If you're ready to turn your product claims into proof, that is what we do.

Common questions

Why is Procter & Gamble acquiring Thorne?

P&G announced a definitive agreement to acquire Thorne on August 4, 2026, in a deal its CEO valued at $3.8 billion. Paul Gama, CEO of P&G Health Care, called the deal "an important step for P&G's Personal Health Care business," citing growing consumer interest in self-care, prevention, and personalized health. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.

How much did Unilever pay for Grüns?

The acquisition, announced April 9, 2026, was reportedly worth about $1.2 billion according to Axios, though Unilever has not publicly confirmed the figure. Grüns was founded in 2023, making it roughly a three-year path from launch to a billion-dollar exit.

Did IM8 raise $1 billion?

Not as an equity round. IM8's parent company Prenetics closed $1 billion in non-dilutive growth financing from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund in July 2026. The fund finances up to 70% of IM8's marketing spend and is repaid through a capped share of income from the customers that spend acquires, so no ownership changed hands.

What is a decentralized clinical study?

A decentralized clinical study runs where participants actually live instead of at a research site. Participants are recruited remotely, enrolled under an IRB-approved protocol, and measured through wearables, at-home biomarker testing, and validated questionnaires, so the product is tested under the real-world conditions customers use it in. This is the study model that has made clinical evidence practical for supplement and wellness brands.

What kind of study does a supplement brand need to support a health claim?

It depends on the claim. The FTC's Health Products Compliance Guidance expects claims to be backed by competent and reliable scientific evidence, and a randomized controlled trial is the strongest form of substantiation. Consumer perception studies support "users reported" language and single-arm studies produce before-and-after outcome data, but neither can substantiate an objective efficacy claim on its own.