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SANNI RAJU, NATREON, INC.
SPDS ASHWAGANDHA WORKING GROUP
Dr. Sanni Raju is CEO & Chairman and a founding director of Natreon, Inc. He has his
Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Pharmacy from India and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics
from University of Maryland at Baltimore. He worked for two major pharmaceutical
companies - Wyeth Laboratories and Burroughs Welcome Company – in USA and
some generic drug companies before founding Natreon. Natreon’s mission is to bring
near pharmaceutical quality to the nutraceutical products. He is a Registered
Pharmacist in New York State.
Dr. Raju is also President of GlobePharma,Inc., a manufacturer of specialized pharmaceutical equipment and
quality-assurance devices that he founded in 1993. He is the inventor of and holds a number of U.S. patents in
connection with the design and application of such equipment and devices and also some pharmaceutical
products.
YANJUN ZHANG, HERBALIFE
SPDS TEA WORKING GROUP
Dr. Yanjun Zhang is currently a Principal Scientist at Herbalife International of America in Torrance, California. Dr.
Zhang obtained his PhD degree from Chinese Academy of Medical Science & Peking Union Medical College. . Prior
to joining Herbalife he has more than 29 years of work experience in the field of phytochemical analysis. Dr. Zhang
was the director of the Phytochemistry Core Laboratory at the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition and was also
assistant researcher at the UCLA’s David Geffen School of medicine. Throughout his career, Dr. Zhang has held
positions as lecturer, associate professor and director at Chengde Medical College in China, was a guest professor
at the National Museum of Natural History in France, and received his postdoctorate at the Bioactive Natural
Products and Phytoceuticals Laboratory at Michigan State University. Dr. Zhang was instrumental in launch the
Botanical Identification Program at Herbalife in 2009. Under his technical direction, the team has developed more
than 90 botanical identification methods for raw material botanical ingredients used globally in Herblalife
products.
Since the tea chemical project launch in 2008 at UCLA, Dr. Zhang’s science team has developed chemical analytical
methods for analysis of tea catechins, tea amino acids, and tea purine alkaloids content. Dr. Zhang’s team also
optimized tea extraction conditions to obtain the high quality tea extracts for Herbalife products. In addition to his
work at Herbalife, Dr. Zhang also developed analytical methods for pomegranate extract and pioneered analytical
methods for the authentication of pomegranate juice. Currently, Dr. Zhang is a member of the American Chemical
Society and the American Society of Pharmacognosy. His research has been widely reported in peer-reviewed
journals and book chapters. Dr. Zhang’s current work is directed towards the authentication and evaluation of
foods, spices and the establishment of analytical methods for botanical dietary supplements quality control.