Mitsui and Kirin Make an Investment in Thorne

August 2, 2018 NEW YORK – Thorne today announced it has entered into an agreement for a joint strategic investment with Mitsui & Co., Ltd. (Mitsui) and Kirin Holdings Company, Limited (Kirin). The strategic investment will be used to help expand Thorne’s personalized health technology platform and products, and to jointly grow their businesses in Asia.

The joint investment between Kirin and Mitsui aims to strengthen each company’s initiatives in global preventive health management and wellness. This follows Mitsui’s investment in Thorne late last year. The Kirin Group owns Kyowa Hakko Kirin Group, which is a group of R&D-based life science companies that contribute to the health and well-being of people around the world by creating new value with special strengths in biotechnologies.

Mitsui and Kirin now join Helsinn and Thorne’s management team as investors replacing the private equity firms WestView Capital Partners and Tudor Ventures (now operating as Spring Lake Equity Partners) as shareholders of Thorne.

“We are delighted to partner with Mitsui and Kirin because we all share a philosophy that marries a strong dedication to science and research with a disruptive approach of developing technologies to help consumers take control of their health,” said Paul Jacobson, Thorne’s CEO. “This partnership will help us to expedite our mission to become the global market leader in prevention and wellness.”

“We had been exploring investing in this space for quite some time, and we chose Thorne because we believe it has a truly differentiated business model which will help consumers gain health insights backed by scientific evidence and lead to the development of innovative products and services based on data,” said Shinro Fujita, Director of Corporate Strategy at Kirin.

“We continue to believe in Thorne’s commitment to proving its products and technology work through testing and research, which enables us to develop a business model to provide consumers with a personalized solution, said Masami Yokoyama, General Manager, NutriScience Division, at Mitsui. “Through joint cooperation with Thorne and Kirin, we can expand business in Japan and other global markets.”

The announcement of the joint investment augments an already big year in Thorne’s strategy to expand into a health and technology company, specializing in personalized consumer health. Earlier this year, the company introduced five at-home health tests, and invested and partnered with Drawbridge Health, the company many believe could become the leader in convenient blood collection in both group and at-home settings pending FDA- clearance. Thorne also invested and co-founded a company with Drs. Joel Dudley and Chris Mason to build a machine-learning based company targeting actionable analytics and products for prevention and wellness.

“We are proud of the success and growth of Thorne so far, lead by its very professional management team, and warmly welcome Mitsui and Kirin as new members of our investment team,” stated Riccardo Braglia, CEO of the Helsinn Group and Thorne board member.

“The Thorne team would like to thank WestView Capital Partners and Tudor Ventures for their support in helping us triple the size of the company during their tenure as investors, and we look forward to substantial growth in our new 270,000 square foot facility just outside Charleston, South Carolina, with Mitsui, Kirin and Helsinn as our investors going forward,” stated Jacobson.