Microbiome NewsThe probiotics industry’s most interesting fault line is between generic, shelf-stable blends and a smaller set of companies betting on personalization. Flore Inc. — formerly Sun Genomics — sits firmly in the second camp, and is worth a neutral look as a case study in the approach.
The model
Flore’s flagship builds a formula from an individual customer’s sequenced stool, using shotgun metagenomics processed through CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited laboratories — a higher analytical bar than the research-use-only pipelines common in consumer testing. It also runs a direct-to-consumer retail line of targeted, goal-specific formulas — marketed under the GoodOnes brand — and a practitioner arm, Flore Clinical, whose microbiome-mapping technology was distributed to a reported ~20,000 clinicians through a 2024 deal with Evexia Diagnostics (covered by NutraIngredients and others).
The open questions
The case for personalization is mechanistically appealing and, in adjacent domains such as personalized nutrition, has modest but real randomized-trial support. The honest open question for the whole category — Flore included — is the size of the marginal benefit of personalization over good generic advice, and how much of it survives rigorous, independent trials. That evidence is still being built.
More on the company’s products is at flore.com. As with all company coverage here, this profile is independent and unpaid.