Leaders in
Pharmaceutical
Adjuvants
The world’s most trusted supplier, our saponin-based
products are the ones used in 5 globally approved
vaccines protecting millions of people worldwide.
Deep
Expertise
Putting 40 years of
expertise to work for you
Supply
Innovation
Constantly innovating to
ensure small and large
volume supply.
Unparalleled
Quality
We hold our materials and
ourselves to the highest
possible standards
LEADERSHIP
Putting 40 years of
Expertise to Work for You
Desert King leads global innovation in managing, refining, and continuously supplying the highest quality saponin-based adjuvants and precursors, including our flagship QS-21.
- Desert King QS-21 is the globally accepted human vaccine-quality benchmark
- We supply the Quillaja saponaria used in 5 globally approved vaccines protecting millions of people against: COVID-19, malaria, RSV, and shingles.
- Our materials are in ~20 pending human vaccines for therapeutic areas that include oncology, infectious disease, and Alzheimer’s.
- Desert King is the only manufacturer capable of supplying FDA-approved, human vaccine-quality, GMP volume saponin-based products.
QS-21 from Desert King is the human vaccine-quality benchmark
WHAT MAKES QS-21 SO IMPORTANT?
One of the world’s most powerful immunostimulants, QS-21 is derived from the bark of the Quillaja saponaria Molina tree using advanced HPLC separation technology for purification. This particular saponin fraction is capable of inducing both humoral as well as cell-mediated immunity.
SUPPLY INNOVATION
Supply You Can Rely On
We take our supply commitment seriously—ongoing innovation reinforces our ability to deliver the products you need, when you need them, in the volumes you require.
High-yield Supply
Our large reserve can supply millions of additional vaccine doses on demand even while we serve our current customers’ needs
High-yield Technology
Through our patented selection process (US Patent 11,254,699 B2) our trees are chosen for their high QS-21 content, further expanding our usable yield.
High-yield Plantations
As pioneers in Quillaja domestication, we have developed plantations to satisfy increasing worldwide demand while preserving the native forest.
Uninterrupted Availability
The holistic Desert King approach of forest stewardship + selection technology + plantations ensures uninterrupted availability of the pharmaceutical-grade products you’re looking for…today and in the future.
QUALITY
Quality and Consistency Without Compromise
We guarantee quality in everything we do for you with zero risk of product
cross-contamination and full batch-level traceability. As proof of our adherence to the
highest possible quality standards, we also seek third-party certifications across industries.
Desert King International
Desert King Chile
Desert King México
PRODUCTS & SERVICES
Products and services tailored to your needs
As the worldwide Quillaja saponaria experts across industries, we supply the technical support you need to get the most out of our adjuvants and adjuvant precursors.
We provide a Drug Master File (DMF) and Investigator’s Brochure (IB) on demand in support of your clinical trials or FDA submissions.
Beyond QS-21
In addition to our flagship QS-21, Desert King offers a variety of other raw materials, adjuvant precursors, and adjuvant systems as well as products for other industries.
Desert King has developed extraction and purification capabilities for XXX, XXX, and XXX. These and others are ready for preclinical research.
VET-SAP is a veterinary vaccine adjuvant from a semi-purified saponin fraction of the bark of the Quillaja saponaria tree.
We provide saponin-based products across many industries from food & beverage to cosmetics and agriculture…
Desert King was easy to approach and very responsive
to our questions and needs.
They understand their adjuvant system extremely well and were critical to us in
sharing information about how it would combine with ours.
General Manager, Asia
We started working with Desert King because they have a reputation for quality and supply reliability.
We keep working with them because they’ve worked hard to nurture a trusting, long-term relationship.
Chief Operations Officer, Asia
Desert King has an experienced team who are all accessible—I can get anyone on the phone when I need to and can get to those who are highly technical to answer complex questions.
They go the extra mile, focusing not just on the transaction, but on the relationship.
Subject Matter Expert, Europe
STEWARDSHIP
Protecting This Critical Natural Resource Is
Our Duty
At Desert King, we view ourselves as shepherds of the forest. Our duty is to protect, manage, and increase the natural supply of Quillaja saponins.
Forest
Stewardship
Council
Chile’s
National Forest
Corporation
Desert King proactively contributes to Quillaja saponaria protection and recovery through our sustainable development and harvesting techniques.
Identifying saponin-rich trees
Some Quillaja trees have more QS-21 than others. Desert King has developed a process for identifying and focusing on those trees with up to 80% QS-21 concentration, minimizing the number of trees we harvest.
Maximizing
yield
Thanks to our innovative processes, Desert King extracts and purifies Quillaja saponins from almost every part of the tree instead of just the bark. This maximizes our product yield while minimizing harvest size and impact.
Protecting
renewability
Through selective pruning and thinning, we harvest Quillaja saponaria using proprietary processes that preserve the tree—once pruned, a wild tree remains untouched for at least 8 years to allow healthy regrowth.