NADH is not new. The coenzyme it belongs to was first described in 1906, its role as the cell's hydrogen carrier was identified in the 1930s, and the chain it feeds to make ATP was mapped in the decades that followed. If it does so much, why is it still rare on the shelf next to vitamin C? The answer is chemistry, not marketing. Reduced NADH breaks down in water and air; light and heat speed that up, and stomach acid finishes the job. So the number that matters is not what goes into the capsule but what is still there months later, and that is the one PureNADH decided to measure.
The search
"I was not looking for a stimulant," says Esef Cosic, founder of PureNADH and co-founder of Pharm Scale, the factory in Srebrenik, Bosnia and Herzegovina, that makes it. "I was looking for the molecule the cell itself uses to make energy." That search leads quickly to the NAD family. Many products in the category are NAD+, NMN or other precursors; the cell still has to convert them and load them with electrons before they can hand those electrons to the first step of making ATP. NADH is the loaded form. It is also a fragile form, which is why keeping it intact in a capsule is the hard part, and the part this article is about.
The problem, confirmed
The work started in August 2024, in Pharm Scale's own laboratory, with a simple question: how much NADH is still NADH after time on the shelf? The early answers were not good. In mid-2025 an independent laboratory in Croatia analyzed the first unprotected batch. The result confirmed what the literature says and what the in-house tests had shown: much of the NADH that had gone in was already gone.
"We had seen it in our own tests since August 2024," says Cosic. "The independent report confirmed it. That batch never reached a customer."
Almost every working day
What followed was not one experiment but a routine, almost every working day in the Pharm Scale laboratory: a formulation, an analysis, a result, and back again. Cosic co-invented the method with Emilija S. Aleksovska, M.Pharm., who built the formulation and its quality systems, and Prof. Midhat Jasic, PureNADH's scientific advisor. In December 2025 they reached the formulation PureNADH still uses today. Counting the independent stability readings that came after, the whole effort took almost two years, from August 2024 to June 2026.
What held
The process starts from freeze-dried NADH, the form the raw material arrives in. Each molecule is then bound into an amorphous complex with a cyclodextrin, a ring-shaped sugar, dispersed and kept apart so oxidation cannot spread from one molecule to the next. The complex is dried under vacuum at low temperature and sealed in an acid-resistant capsule designed to open past the stomach.
The plain-language version of what the application protects: in a crystal of NADH the molecules sit shoulder to shoulder, so when one oxidizes its neighbors follow. Held apart inside the complex, a molecule that breaks down has no neighbor to pass it on to. The exact ratios, conditions and steps are in the patent application and are not published here.
Who measured it
Stability is easy to claim and hard to show, so the company did not rely on its own numbers. From March to June 2026 an independent laboratory took four monthly readings of how much NADH remained in the stabilized formulation. Every reading stayed within 5% of the first. It is the same NADH and the same protection that go into every PureNADH batch. The readings are on the Science page, section 04, normalized to the first measurement so that any drift would be visible.
What patent-pending means, and what it does not
On 6 August 2026 the stabilization method was filed for patent, with Cosic, Aleksovska and Jasic named as inventors. Patent-pending means exactly that: an application has been filed and is awaiting examination. It does not mean a patent has been granted, and PureNADH does not describe the method as patented. Patent status describes a filing; it does not by itself establish efficacy, safety, stability or absorption. The readings above are what speak for stability.
What is still not known
Shelf stability is the part that can be measured in a laboratory, and four months of it have been. What happens after swallowing is a different question. The acid-resistant capsule is designed to carry the complex past the stomach; neither that release nor what follows it has been measured in a controlled study by the company, and the Science page says so. PureNADH has no human study of its own and does not publish absorption percentages.
That also shapes how to judge the product. NADH is not a stimulant, and nothing about it announces itself in twenty minutes. The fair test is a few weeks with a simple daily note. Chapter 6 of the NADH Series sets out what to expect in the first weeks, and, for customers, The First 30 Days walks through it week by week.
Where it is made, and who answers for it
- Made in Pharm Scale's own facility in Srebrenik, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Europe: a GMP manufacturing license from the country's Ministry of Health, and ISO 22000:2018 certified by TUV Thuringen (certificate 1515426366).
- One ingredient, NADH, formulated to 100 mg per capsule at 99% purity. Every batch is tested by an independent laboratory before release; the report for your batch is available on request at support@purenadh.com, with the batch number from your label.
- Sold first in the Netherlands in January 2026, then in Germany a month later, and in the United States officially from August 2026, where Pure NADH Research LLC in Hamilton, New Jersey, is the company behind each order.
The version in Cosic's own words, under his own signature, is in the founder's letter.
