Formulation Review Report | Project B V-Flora

Product Studied: Project B V-Flora

Introduction
We at Project B emphasize on being bare and transparent of our product ingredient and formulation. We have an extensive product development stage, carefully engineer every product to ensure they work. As a part of our groundwork, we reach out to a number of independent professionals for a blind test to compare the nutritional information and ingredients of our formula with the available brands in the market.

Under this review, we reached out to independent pharmacist to compare the nutritional information and ingredients of women vaginal health product from two other brands: Nature's Way, California Gold Nutrition and Project B, to see if there was any way to improve it. This was a blind test, that Nature's Way's, California Gold Nutrition's and Project B's names are never disclosed during the creation of the reviews. The pharmacist was not paid or given anything to endorse any of these products.

This product has been studied and fine-tuned for over 28 months before the formulation is confirmed. We took another 6 months to test its efficacy profile on over 36 individuals before it is being delivered to you. This part of the report reviews the product formulation, where we have another part of the report displays the results of the efficacy profile.

Who are the formulators
We work closely with Dr Mia during the study and selection of the women health ingredients. Dr Mia has great interest and passion in researching the actives for women care and wellbeing for over 7 years of her research career.

Here, we took over 28 months to finalize the product formula, where ingredients are ensured at their optimum effective dose, complement with its product efficacy profile and portfolio.

Who have we approached
We wanted to carry out a fair review of our product, so we have invited Ms. Judith L, an independent pharmacist with over 6 years of working experience in the hospital sector at the United Kingdom (UK). We believe Judith has the capability in sounding a credible opinion in view of her profession. We look forward to gaining some insights from the review generated.

What is Pharmacist
Pharmacists are qualified medication experts who use their detailed knowledge of medicines to ensure the quality of medicines supplied to patients. Pharmacists are responsible in dispensing medications, assuring the safety and appropriateness of the prescribed therapy and within the law; monitoring patient health and progress to achieve the best medication results; at the same time, providing education and advice on the use of prescription and over-the-counter medications.

Pharmacists are statutorily regulated, with a protected title and governed by an ethical code, to ensure that they always work to the highest standard. The spectrum of environments in which pharmacists practise is broad and includes the government practice, private practice, industry, education, research, publishing and non-government organisations. Their advice influences healthcare policy across the spectrum from government to local communities and individuals.

The title 'pharmacist' can only be used by those appropriately trained professionals who have registered with the Pharmacy Board of Malaysia and whose details are on the official portal of pharmaceutical services programme: ministry of health malaysia website.

What have been evaluated
The nutritional information and ingredients of women vaginal health product from three brands: Nature's Way, California Gold Nutrition and Project B are compared and evaluated. 

The information we provided for review
Below, you can see the images the pharmacist was provided:

It was a totally blind test. The pharmacist was paid for his time producing the reviews, but not to endorse or favour any product. The reviews below aren't perfect, and we are the first to admit such. However, Judith is expert in her field, highly professional and have provided some great insights to highlight between the three products.

The results
The following review produced have not been edited or altered in any sense, it is the original piece that the independent pharmacist has provided. This review is conducted based on 3 brands: Nature's Way (Product A), Project B (Product B) and California Gold Nutrition (Product C).

Pharmacist: Judith L (Ms)
I was invited to conduct a formulation review on 3 products; I understand that this is comparing against 3 different companies and the product is intended to develop for women vaginal health. Based on my professional experience, there is an approximately 30-50% of women affected by vulvovaginal candidiasis (a type of vaginal fungal infection) and around 50–60% of women will experience at least once urinary tract infection (UTI) in their lifetime. This statistics is not made up, and actually show how common these are happening in the community and little do we know, these can actually impact women's intimate / quality of life and sometimes confidence.

Directing back to this review, currently available and established studies on women vaginal and urinary tract health are extensively covering on two elements: probiotics and/or cranberry extract. To my best of knowledge, probiotics consists of many strains from different family, certain strains of probiotics have shown to benefit digestive health and immunity, while we too have a certain specific strain that is capable to support a healthy vaginal microbiome and impact on the clearance of vaginal infection. Onto our second ingredient focus, cranberry extract has been included in multiple country's therapeutic guideline to be included as part of the treatment / preventive treatment of urinary tract infection, and suggest to use as maintenance after recovery to prevent recurrence. Briefly going through the material provided, I learn that these are the focus ingredients of these companies too, so in this review, I will be putting the focus around these two ingredients: probiotics and cranberry extract, as our core discussion.

As I study, the differentiation gets clearer - Product A is a probiotic centric product; Product B is a combination of probiotic and cranberry product; Product C focuses more on the delivery of cranberry extract. If we look further for the details, we can learn that Product A offers 8 probiotic strain type with a combination of prebiotic fiber, I love seeing probiotic + prebiotic in combination as I personally think they should always come in a pair. Product B first/majority ingredient is cranberry extract, what interesting is it is also included with yoghurt for added advantage of probiotic concentration, along with a blend of 7 probiotic strain and prebiotic fiber, in additional with vitamin C and dates extract; these are all thoughful ingredients in combination that is most beneficial for overall women health and a really good complement for vaginal health - probiotic + prebiotic (checked), cranberry (checked), vitamin (bonus), dates extract (bonus). Product C on the other hand has a much simpler profile with Vitamin C as the first/majority ingredient, I personally will put this as a disadvantage considering the focus of our product is on vaginal care, I personally would appreciate more if cranberry extract is listed as the top/first ingredient for this purpose.

To put together a summary, I think the most comprehensive formula for this current review for vaginal product is no other than Product B, followed by the competitive number of probiotic strain types in Product A as second, and lastly Product C.


Author's Note: We had no contact with Judith before the test was conducted, and she had never heard of Project B until after the results were gathered. These results were entirely independent and blind on her behalf.