BI Nutraceuticals today announced that its president and CEO, George Pontiakos, has been asked to participate in a CEO panel at the Council for Responsible Nutrition's Annual Symposium on Dietary Supplements. Pontiakos will sit on the panel, "Future View from the Top: Industry Leaders Forum on the Supplement Industry," on Sunday, October 5 at 10:30 a.m. at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya in Santa Ana Pueblo, N.M.

Alongside panel member Connie Barry, Pharmavite president and CEO, Pontiakos will offer his perspective on issues crucial to the dietary supplement industry, including quality control, international supply chain practices and organic sterilization trends.

"I'm honored to participate in a session that will evaluate both the current state of the dietary supplement industry as well as the industry's future evolution and potential," said Pontiakos.

As president and CEO of BI Nutraceuticals, Pontiakos oversees the company's worldwide operations. BI has manufacturing and processing facilities in Long Beach, Calif., Long Island, N.Y., Boonton, N.J. and Suzhou and Shanghai, China. Pontiakos has held senior leadership positions at several leading consulting, medical services and technology companies including Monovasia, which he founded, Oluma, Lucent, Agere, Ortel, NetVantage and Timeplex. He has wide-ranging experience in scaling geographically dispersed global companies to

maximize their ability to successfully compete in the marketplace.

Pontiakos holds a bachelor's degree in Business Management from Farleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey.

About BI Nutraceuticals:

BI Nutraceuticals is a global full-service supplier of dietary supplement and functional food ingredients including whole herb powders and teas, standardized and drug ratio extracts, custom blends, vitamins, minerals, drum to hopper custom blends, granular ingredients and other specialty processes including time released and encapsulated ingredients. Since 2002, BI has been an innovator in steam sterilization and the company's Protexx HP(R) process is currently the industry's only species-specific, organic sterilization method. All BI ingredients undergo stringent quality analysis that includes heavy metal, pesticide and irradiation testing. All herbal powder ingredients are also tested under the company's Identilok(R) species identification process. The company has also developed a proprietary process, UltraHD(R), which creates high-density herbal powders allowing for superior flow and less dusting during the manufacturing process. For more information, visit www.binutraceuticals.com.

About The CRN:

Based in Washington, D.C., The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), founded in 1973, is a trade association representing ingredient suppliers and manufacturers in the dietary supplement industry. CRN members adhere to a strong code of ethics, comply with dosage limits and manufacture dietary supplements to high quality standards under good manufacturing practices. CRN's mission is to enhance and sustain a climate for member companies to responsibly market dietary supplements and their ingredients by maintaining and improving confidence among consumers, media, government leaders, regulators, healthcare professionals and other decision makers with respect to members' products.