Sheni Labs · About
About Sheni Labs
Sheni Labs is the product science lab of the Public Health Institute of Georgia (PHIG) network. It evaluates supplements, traditional and complementary medicine products, cosmetics and perfume, and home products against the published evidence and the applicable regulation, and gives a plain verdict: recommended or not. It is the simple front door to supplement.ge, the network’s ingredient and brand database, and it draws on the research of the Georgian Medical Journal and its newsroom.
Why PHIG built it
Consumer health products reach people through pharmacies, shops, markets and, increasingly, online — faster than any regulator can check them. Each product type is governed by a different law, judged by a different agency and discussed in a different place; nobody looks at the whole picture, and the least regulated categories — traditional remedies, “natural” cures, products sold on social media — are the least examined of all. The Public Health Institute of Georgia created Sheni Labs as one system to look at all of them from every side, with one method and one standard of evidence, and to give the population independent safety information in plain language. It is an innovation of the institute. Consumers and professionals submit products free of charge; organisations can commission assessments on a paid basis, and the fee pays for the work, never for the result. Findings are published for everyone.
What the lab does
- Commissioned assessments. Manufacturers, importers, retailers, pharmacy chains and public bodies can commission single-product, portfolio, due-diligence, label-review and market-watch assessments on a paid basis — terms.
- Verdicts. Independent desk verification of consumer health products — no laboratory testing; the product checked against ingredient databases, the evidence, regulator alerts and the public registries behind every certificate, logo and laboratory report on the label (method) — supplements, traditional and complementary medicine, cosmetics and perfume, home products — with four possible outcomes and the reasons for each. How to get a verdict.
- Gateway. A plain-language route into supplement.ge: ingredient check, brand scorecards, drug interactions, label and price indices.
- Knowledge hub. The science behind product categories — what to look for on a label, which regulation applies, which chemicals are restricted and why — drawing on GMJ, GMJ News and the Sheni network’s Georgian-language publications.
- Evidence standards. The evidence grading used for every claim, shared with the rest of the network.
- Formulation. Sheni Labs designs and documents the SHENI Paris supplement line sold at sheni.fr, published with the same documentation and never graded by the lab itself.
- Network. The PHIG network’s tools, open data and innovations, collected on the Network page.
The network
| Site | Role |
|---|---|
| publichealth.ge | The institute |
| labour.edu.ge | Georgian Institute of Labour Studies — research programme on work and occupational health |
| gmj.ge | Georgian Medical Journal — peer-reviewed, open access |
| news.gmj.ge | GMJ News and the Georgian Dictionary of Public Health |
| academy.gmj.ge | GMJ Academy — courses and continuing education |
| france-asf.fr | Accréditation Sans Frontières — international partner; PHIG is its Georgian adapter |
| supplement.ge | SupplementIndex — ingredient and brand safety database; the data behind Sheni Labs’ supplement verdicts |
| certificate.ge | SheniEkimi Certification — verified health professionals and simple facility quality certificates; the step before accreditation |
| accreditation.ge | Accreditation Canada — Georgia office, represented by PHIG |
| shenilabs.ge | Sheni Labs — this site |
How the network fits together →
Who stands behind a verdict
A pool of independent experts across ten disciplines working pro bono — named publicly only with their consent, since many face commercial or institutional pressure — a Scientific Committee chaired by Prof. Giorgi Pkhakadze that owns the method and decides contested cases, and ISO/IEC 17025-accredited partner laboratories that test when the record is not enough. Experts and laboratories →
Principles
- Everything on this site links to the partner that produces it; the lab does not copy and does not let copies go stale.
- Every number carries its source; estimates are labelled as estimates.
- Tools store nothing: what you enter in a checklist or self-assessment stays on your device.
- Data are open by default, under CC BY 4.0 unless the dataset page says otherwise.
- The lab is a non-profit activity of PHIG, funded by PHIG and by fees for commissioned assessments; all fee income is reinvested in developing the lab, no part goes to any individual, and no fee changes a verdict. It takes no advertising and no sponsorship from product companies. A summary of income and spending is published annually. Financial transparency →
Governance and policies. This site is a platform of the Public Health Institute of Georgia and operates under the PHIG Policy Framework — seventy-five policies written to EU, US, WHO/UN and bilateral donor standards: conflict of interest, anti-fraud, whistleblowing, research integrity, data protection, gender equality, equal opportunities, safeguarding and PSEAH, environment, open science, procurement, financial management, visibility, volunteer engagement, sanctions compliance, and more. Concerns may be reported in confidence to info@accreditation.ge.
Legal
Sheni Labs operates under the Public Health Institute of Georgia, 3 Betlemi Rise, Tbilisi. SHENI (შენი) is a registered trademark of PHIG in Georgia. See the legal notice, privacy policy and terms of use. Contact: contact.
