Elysium Health

Elysium's history is also a cautionary tale about the fragility of supplement economics and the litigation that shadows this category: its multi-year legal war with former ingredient supplier ChromaDex — spanning patent-infringement claims (Basis used nicotinamide riboside sourced from ChromaDex's Niagen) and contract disputes over a large 2016 order — consumed enormous management attention, and while the Federal Circuit ultimately found the asserted NR composition claims patent-ineligible as a product of nature and a jury sided substantially with Elysium, years of costly litigation is not how a consumer brand wants to spend its runway. The deeper problem is structural: NAD+ supplements rest on contested efficacy — human evidence that raising NAD+ meaningfully extends healthspan remains thin — leaving the whole category exposed to regulatory scrutiny and skeptical coverage. Competition is ferocious and largely undifferentiated: Tru Niagen (ChromaDex's own brand), Timeline's urolithin A, Novos, and countless white-label stacks all fight for the same wellness dollar, compressing margins. Roughly $71M raised over a decade with no disclosed recent round suggests slow growth rather than breakout scale. And a brand built on scientific legitimacy is one negative trial or FDA action away from losing exactly the credibility that is its only moat.