Reuters noted that another possible bidder is a lesser-known British company that makes Advil, TheraFlu and the Centrum line of vitamins: Haleon, which was spun off from global drugmakers Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline a few years ago, said it doesn\u2019t comment on market rumors.<\/p>\n
Thorne itself hasn\u2019t publicly addressed the speculation<\/p>\n
Private-equity investor L Catteron<\/a> acquired the business for $680 million in 2023, six years after the dietary supplement and wellness brand moved most of its operations to the Summerville area.<\/p>\n The legacy life-sciences firm cut its teeth in the Seattle area in the mid-1980s before heading inland to northern Idaho. In 2017, it announced it was relocating most of its key operations to coastal South Carolina after outgrowing its headquarters and factory near the Washington state border.<\/p>\n The move to Berkeley County included a $35 million capital investment commitment and the creation of at least 350 jobs.<\/p>\n Thorne moved most of its operations to Summerville (above) from Idaho in 2018.<\/p>\n File\/Staff<\/p>\n During the pandemic, the rise in telehealth services, online shopping and self-health-awareness prompted the company to add a 360,320-square-foot warehouse in Omni\u00a0Industrial Campus\u00a0off Interstate 26 to give it more room to store and process materials for the roughly 250 products it makes. The business has since grown to a payroll of more than 800 workers and a worldwide customer base of seven million.<\/p>\n Thorne was a publicly traded Nasdaq-listed company<\/a> for about two years, before going private again<\/a> in the sale to L Catterton, which targets mostly consumer businesses<\/a>, such as Birkenstock and Mexican street-food chain Bartaco<\/a>. The Greenwich, Conn.-based buyout shop in turn is owned by French conglomerate LMVH, the parent of retailer Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Tiffany & Co. and other luxury labels.<\/p>\n L Catterton said shortly after the acquisition that it had admired Thorne “for many years given its uncompromising approach” to clinical science and innovation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Grand View Research has estimated the size of the U.S. dietary supplements market would nearly double to $132 billion by 2033, from about $69 billion last year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n