Speaker Interview – Eden Banon-Lagrange

What are the key challenges you face in advancing infant centric ingredient development and R&D?

Human milk is the gold standard: a uniquely complex and dynamic system containing thousands of bioactive compounds that support immunity, gut health, development, and metabolism. Reproducing this complexity in a scalable, cost effective, and industrially relevant way presents key scientific challenges. It requires bringing together expertise across cell biology, bioprocess engineering, regulatory strategy, and industrial manufacturing. What makes this timing especially exciting is that recent progress in science and industrial biotechnology is making possible a new generation of ingredients designed around infant biological needs.

What recent progress or successes are you most looking forward to sharing with the infant formula community at the summit this June?

We’re particularly excited to share the progress we’ve made in scaling Nūmi’s bioproduction platform and bringing it closer to industrial reality. Our approach leverages human mammary cells to produce a broad spectrum of human milk bioactives from a single upstream process. Over the past months, we successfully completed our first 50L bioreactor runs, a key milestone demonstrating scalability beyond the lab.

In parallel, we’ve generated data showing the production of over 1,000 bioactive molecules, including key human milk proteins such as lactoferrin, osteopontin, alpha-lactalbumin and lysozyme, as well as complex HMOs. Our mass spectrometry analyses indicate that up to 94% of the proteins identified in a human milk sample are also present in our production output. More broadly, these results reinforce our core belief: integrated biological systems have the potential to redefine how infant nutrition is designed, enabling formulations that more closely reflect the complexity, functionality and biological composition of human milk.

How is the current regulatory environment influencing your approach to novel ingredient development and commercialization in infant formula?

The regulatory environment for novel ingredients is becoming more structured and defined, which is an important step forward for the industry. In recent years, we’ve seen increasing regulatory acceptance of ingredients such as HMOs and lactoferrin, helping to establish clearer precedents for innovation in infant nutrition. This evolution is gradually shifting the conversation from whether novel ingredients can be approved to how they can be evaluated, validated, and responsibly brought to market. For Nūmi, regulatory considerations have been integral to our approach from day one. Our production processes, quality systems, traceability standards, analytical methods, and safety frameworks are all being designed with regulatory alignment in mind. More broadly, we believe success in this space will rely on strong scientific foundations combined with early and constructive engagement with regulatory bodies.

What are the key benefits of attending the Novel Ingredients for Infant Formula Summit for your team or organization, and which parts of the agenda are you most looking forward to exploring?

This summit is particularly valuable as it brings together the full ecosystem needed to advance infant nutrition, from industry leaders and ingredient innovators to scientists, regulatory experts, and strategic decision-makers.
We’re especially looking forward to conversations around next-generation bioactives, evolving regulatory pathways, clinical evidence expectations, and the future innovation roadmap for infant formula.

Ultimately, meaningful progress in infant nutrition happens when science, industry, and regulation evolve in alignment, and this summit is one of the few forums where these perspectives come together.