First NZ-made sports supplement registered drug-free with Informed-Sport

Nelson’s Supreme Biotechnologies has today launched its MakoXcell™ sports supplement, which is registered with the international quality assurance program for sports nutrition products, Informed-Sport.

Informed-Sport is a quality assurance programme for sports nutrition products, suppliers to the sports nutrition industry, and supplement manufacturing facilities. The programme certifies that all nutritional supplements and/or ingredients that bear the Informed-Sport logo have been tested for banned substances by the world class sports anti-doping lab, LGC.

Supreme Biotechnologies’ CEO Tony Dowd says MakoXcell™ is the first New Zealand-made sports supplement he knows of to achieve registration with Informed-Sport.

“Given the numerous scandals over banned substances in sport in recent years we take the formulation of our products for sports people very seriously,” Dowd says.

“Not only is the scientific formulation and its efficacy crucial, athletes need to trust that the performance is their own and not affected by drugs. Achieving this was fundamental to MakoXcell™’s development and why we engaged Informed-Sport to test every batch. WADA’s list of banned substances and methods is updated annually, so our operations have been set up to enable us to test against this list every year so athletes can feel rest assured that MakoXcell™ is clear of any banned substances.”

Supreme Biotechnologies has worked with renowned preventative medicine expert Dr Robert Corish to formulate MakoXcell™. Dr Corish says MakoXcell™ blends the super antioxidant Astaxanthin with vital ingredients to target the body’s energy power plants, mitochondria, which provide athletes the energy they need when they need it.


Photo courtesy of etc. communications

“MakoXcell™ works in two key ways,” Corish says. “First, it gives you that burst of energy you need quickly and it also supplies more energy over a longer time for endurance activities. Secondly it slows down fatigue by suppressing inflammation, which means the body can recover faster. It’s the only nutraceutical supplement that I’m aware of that takes care of both of these needs within one product.”

Dr Corish says supplements have become a vital part of the modern training regime for many professional athletes, and Supreme Biotechnologies has worked since 2012 with the Tasman Makos rugby team on MakoXcell™’s development.

“The Tasman Makos had been using AstaSupreme, which contains the super antioxidant Astaxanthin, for a few years and they strongly believed in its positive effects,” he says. “We then worked closely with the team’s strength and conditioning coach Glenn Stewart to develop MakoXcell™, which combines Astaxanthin with a careful selection of natural ingredients, including Omega 3 fatty acids, Creatine, CoQ10, Gutamine and more, to help with two key elements - endurance and recovery.”

The Tasman Makos play in New Zealand’s national provincial rugby championship, the ITM Cup. From near obscurity in the lower Championship division only four years ago, the Makos have risen to the top four of the higher Premiership leader board and are heading into this year’s playoffs as a team to watch.

Les Edwards from the Tasman Makos says the team has focused in recent years on a targeted training regime including the MakoXcell™ supplement program.

“With MakoXcell™ our team has improved markedly over the last three years in terms of its endurance and recovery and its performance in those final 20 minutes of each game,” he says. “The excellent MakoXcell™ supplements program complements our first-class team of coaches, strength and conditioning trainers, doctors and physios and extremely talented and passionate players. All of these elements together help us keep an edge on the rugby park when we’re up against the bigger and better resourced teams.”

Tasman Makos Lock Joe Wheeler says he has been taking MakoXcell™ as his only sports supplement every morning for two years and he has noticed a big difference in his health.

“My general wellbeing has really improved and I haven’t had nearly as many sicknesses than in the past - it keeps me on the field,” Wheeler says. “When coming off a super rugby season straight into an ITM Cup season it’s important that general health is good, and I find I’m able to now maintain that through the whole year.”

MakoXcell™ is named after the Tasman Makos but is formulated for all endurance sports, such as cycling, running, swimming, football, rugby and netball – sports where the athletes have intensive training regimes for their season.

Learn more about how MakoXcell™ (pronounced Mako – ex – cell) at www.makoxcell.com.