Are Supplement Strips the New Gummies?

Oral dissolving strips are emerging as a new delivery format for supplements, with brands claiming the format offers better absorption and higher consistency than traditional capsules, powders or gummies

For consumers who never quite enjoyed swallowing a handful of pills or choking down odd-tasting powders, supplement gummies felt like a long-overdue fix. They were easy to use and, for many, a sweet treat. But for the more health-conscious, the fine print made them pause. Many gummies would carry added sugars, artificial flavors and filler ingredients that sit alongside the wellness goals they’re supposed to support.

Now, a novel format may check a few more boxes, including delivery, taste, form factor and efficacy. Oral dissolving strips, thin films that dissolve on the tongue or roof of the mouth in just 30 seconds, are moving out of pharmaceutical applications and into the consumer supplement market.

The premise is that rather than swallowing a pill and waiting for the digestive system to break it down, a strip on the tongue dissolves, releasing the active compounds directly across the oral mucosa into the bloodstream.

The Science of Transmucosal Delivery

In a conventional tablet or capsule, active compounds are embedded in a compressed matrix that must disintegrate, dissolve, survive gastric acid, transit the small intestine, pass through the intestinal epithelium and clear first-pass metabolism through the liver before reaching systemic circulation. 

Elina Ivanova-Atanassov, CEO of Smart Strips, told Athletech News that depending on the compound, that breakdown process “may eliminate 40-60% of the functional dose before reaching the bloodstream.”

She added that in an oral thin film, that pathway is largely bypassed.

“The active ingredients are already dispersed within a fast-hydrating polymer matrix, in our case, pullulan-based, which means there is no disintegration lag,” she said. “On contact with saliva, the film dissolves in seconds, releasing the compounds in a uniform layer across the buccal and sublingual mucosa.”

The oral mucosa works as an absorption surface because of its vascular density. Tracy Gibbs, PhD, chief science officer and head of R&D at Smart Strips, told ATN that “the inner lining of the mouth contains thousands of microcapillaries through which active ingredients, if formulated correctly, can pass directly into systemic circulation.”

However, Gibbs noted, maintaining efficiency through stability is often overlooked because of complexity. Smart Strips incorporates key molecules to facilitate the transport of active ingredients across the mucosal barrier.

“We use specific penetration-enhancing molecules and monosaccharides that your mouth loves to assimilate into the bloodstream to carry and transport the active ingredient,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs added that the formulation work to reach the stability and consistency took close to two years.

Additionally, consistency across users matters as much as peak bioavailability. Hence, ensuring predictable plasma concentrations was critical for Ivanova-Atanassov.

“Under controlled conditions, this delivery mechanism can reach bioavailability levels approaching 95%, with substantially lower variance compared to gastrointestinal formats,” Ivanova-Atanassov said.

The company reports that the onset of action can be up to four times faster than capsules, powders or liquid shots, with a perceptible effect within 10 to 15 minutes of use. Smart Strips’ current lineup spans categories including pre-workout (Fckn Fit), post-workout recovery (Refuel), sleep (Z-z-Zen), cognition (Focus), mood support (Anxiety), immune health, longevity (NMN) and beauty (Beaute).

James Clawson, vice president of growth at Dissolvd, makes the same case, calling the format a structural shift in how supplements work and are used.

“This isn’t just a different format, it’s a fundamentally better way to take supplements,” Clawson told ATN.

Dissolvd’s strips target many of the same wellness categories, including longevity (NAD+ and glutathione), recovery (Rebuild), growth hormone support (Grow) and libido (Connect).

The Lower Dose Question

One of the more counterintuitive aspects of the strip format is that ingredient dosages are often lower than in capsules. Given how deeply the higher-dose-equals-better-efficacy assumption is embedded in supplement culture, it made us wonder whether a lower dose may have comparable efficacy.

Ivanova-Atanassov explained to ATN that the lower milligram amounts are a direct consequence of how efficiently the format delivers active compounds to the bloodstream. In traditional oral formats, manufacturers compensate for absorption losses by calibrating the dose to what survives gastrointestinal transit rather than what the body needs. According to her, with strips, that logic doesn’t apply because the compounds arrive in a pre-solubilized state via a much shorter diffusion pathway, with no gastrointestinal degradation to account for.

Gibbs offers caffeine as a practical illustration of how this plays out for consumers.

“Caffeine, for example, might be lower than what you would normally see in an energy drink, but it hits your bloodstream faster and harder and feels like a higher dose,” he told ATN.

Clawson, however, is careful not to frame the conversation around dose-matching at all.

“We don’t believe the future of supplementation is about matching capsule doses. It’s about rethinking how delivery works altogether,” he told ATN. “The goal isn’t to take more, it’s to deliver smarter.”

Limitations & The Education Gap

Both brands acknowledge that the format isn’t universally applicable. High-dose or structurally complex ingredients present formulation challenges, and not every active ingredient is well-suited to transmucosal delivery. Factors like molecular size, polarity and stability all influence whether a compound performs as intended in a strip format.

“Every delivery system has tradeoffs, and we embrace that,” Clawson said. “Some high-dose or complex ingredients may not be ideal today, but we see that as an opportunity, not a limitation.”

Consumer education also remains a significant hurdle. The industry is at a turning point, Clawson says. Demand is rising for formats that fit modern routines, but brands have to explain a mechanism consumers haven’t encountered before.

“We’re not just introducing a product, we’re introducing a new way of thinking about supplementation,” Clawson said.

Smart Strips encountered the same challenge at FIBO, the largest fitness and wellness exhibition in Europe.

“The consistent pattern was initial skepticism, followed by immediate recognition once the strip was used,” Ivanova-Atanassov said. “The onset is perceptible. People noticed something was happening within 10 to 15 minutes, which creates a completely different level of product confidence.”

Looking ahead, Ivanova-Atanassov says, Smart Strips is already developing peptide-based formulations, a category that has historically required injection because the gastrointestinal tract’s proteases degrade peptide structures before they reach an absorption site. The oral mucosa presents a meaningfully different enzymatic environment, she explains, and when combined with appropriate stabilization strategies within the film matrix, it opens access to a class of active ingredients that conventional oral formats cannot adequately protect.

Whether supplement strips will displace gummies, capsules or any other format at scale will depend on whether the bioavailability arguments translate into outcomes consumers can measure, and on whether brands can make the underlying science legible enough to earn their trust in the first place.