At Thorne, we pride ourselves on providing you with everything you need in a supplement, and nothing else.

Since our start in 1984 we have only made products in the form of capsules and powders. We have avoided manufacturing tablets because we believe the binders and fillers required to make them can make nutrient absorption unpredictable.

Other supplement manufacturers often times combine substances such as magnesium stearate and other fatty acids with products during manufacturing.

These substances are almost always utilized to improve production times for the manufacturer and rarely enhance a product’s efficacy.

Unlike powders and capsules that can be free flowing, a tablet has a defined shape and it is challenging to create a stable tablet without using binders and/or fillers to maintain that shape.

The “No List”

Behind the scenes at Thorne we have a well-known document called the “No List.” When decisions are made during a product’s research and development, we always consult the "No List". When questions arise about changing a formulation, we consult the "No List". Back orders and production delays are often due to a violation of the "No List".

Simply put, our "No List" is a list of the substances Thorne refuses to include in our nutritional supplements; unnecessary fillers, additives, or allergens are no’s.

  • Ingredients that do not contain desired potency are no’s.
  • Ingredients that have been contaminated are no’s.
  • Ingredients that don’t meet our standards for stability testing are no’s.

In principle, however, the "No List" has a more significant meaning to each and every Thorne employee.

The list speaks to the core of our company, to our commitment to providing a quality supplement that contains research-backed ingredients, in effective amounts, that has a potency that meets label claims even on the day of expiration.

The "No List" speaks to our commitment to our customers to provide them a supplement with the fewest number of ingredients that can be trusted to be consistent from batch to bottle.

There are many shortcuts and loopholes supplement manufacturers can exploit for financial gain. The "No List" protects our customers from taking a loss in quality, just for manufacturer gain.

The “Yes List”

Thorne’s “Yes List” is a much shorter list, but it’s equally as powerful. The "Yes List" is a series of questions that must be true to move forward with any new product.

  • Is it what the science and research say is best?
  • Does it meet our quality standards?
  • Most importantly, is it what’s best for our customers?

When Yes Meets No, Innovation Happens

On very rare occasions, the "Yes List" and the "No List" disagree, and it presents a welcome challenge to our research and development team.

The development of our newest sports performance product, Beta Alanine-SR, is a case in point. Both the science and the research said that time-released tablets would be – by far – the best way to deliver the benefits of the supplement.

A powdered beta-alanine product would need to be taken multiple times per day to be most effective. And existing research protocols were largely based on providing a sustained-release form of beta-alanine.

The "Yes List" told us we needed beta-alanine in a sustained-release tableted form to provide a quality, science-based product that would best meet the needs of our customers. However, the No List has typically stood for no tablets.

The easy answer would have been to scrap the project and say, “Sorry, we don’t make tablets.” That answer didn’t sit right with us because it violated one of our key "Yes List" questions: “Is it what’s best for our customers?”

The best thing for customers was a tablet that also met our strict ingredient criteria. Our research and development team took this challenge personally and came to the realization that it isn’t tablets per se that violate our standards.

The real problem is that the standard ingredients used by most manufacturers in making tablets are on our "No List". The challenge was to make a tablet form that complies with the "No List" and checks the boxes on the "Yes List".

The PureTab™

Our research and development team realized that we could apply what we learned in creating some of our existing sustained-release capsule products – such as L-Arginine-SR and Glutathione-SR – to devise a tablet formula that held up to the stability testing and durability required of a tablet without violating our "No List".

The refusal of our research and development team to accept a situation where the Yes and No Lists disagreed brought us a game changing technology – the PureTab™. In fact, this new formula is so innovative that the U.S. Trademark Office has tentatively approved our application to register PureTab as a trademark.

The PureTab formulation of our Beta Alanine-SR is Thorne’s first-ever tableted product. It’s another step in our quest to provide you with the highest quality products, containing everything you need in a supplement, and nothing else.