Who Owns Nature Made?

Pharmavite was founded in Los Angeles in 1971 by pharmacist Barry Pressman and entrepreneur Henry Burdick, who believed there was a better path to long-term health than prescription drugs. The Nature Made brand was created alongside the company, with its first label designed in 1972 and distribution to drug stores beginning in 1975.

The brand's early differentiator was pharmacy-grade credibility. In 1981 Pharmavite joined the Council for Responsible Nutrition, the industry's trade association, and Nature Made later became the first major US vitamin brand to earn United States Pharmacopeia (USP) verification on a broad range of products, a third-party mark that became its signature claim.

Nature Made expanded to Japan in 1980, a connection that foreshadowed the 1989 acquisition of Pharmavite by Otsuka Pharmaceutical. Under Otsuka the brand scaled into the dominant mass-market vitamin line in the US, expanding across multivitamins, letter vitamins, minerals, fish oil, herbals, gummies, and prenatal formulas.

Product expansion in the 2020s included Nurish by Nature Made, a personalized subscription service launched in 2020, and Nature Made Wellblends, a condition-specific line launched in 2022 that won Otsuka's Global Excellence in Marketing Award. Pharmavite acquired women's health company Bonafide Health in 2023 and opened a new production facility in New Albany, Ohio, in 2025, complementing its California manufacturing.

Today Pharmavite produces more than 30 billion products annually, and Nature Made remains the number-one-selling US vitamin brand by retail sales.