Lin Chih-ying, also known as Jimmy Lin, poses in front of his company's collagen products in an event in Shanghai in October. Photo: CFP

A biotech firm endorsed by Lin Chih-ying, or Jimmy Lin, a Taiwan actor, singer and race car driver, has been criticized by experts on Monday, including a well-known anti-fraud blogger, for exaggerating the effects of its collagen oral liquid.

The company still has not completed its registration in Shanghai, which means it is still not authorized to sell products in the mainland.

Lin established Ibelieve biotech company, which produces a collagen oral liquid in cooperation with Shanghai Grape King Enterprises Corp, Lin and Ibelieve announced on their Weibo accounts on November 25.

The collagen product went on sale on Ibelieve's online store on tmall.com and its own website love-ibelieve.com on November 22. Shortly after Lin started to promote the collagen oral liquid on his Weibo account, claiming it has an anti-aging function and can revive the skin of users.

But Lin soon came under fire from Fang Zhouzi, an expert in chemical biology and a popular blogger, who wrote several articles on his blog criticizing Lin for making false and exaggerated claims about the collagen product.

Actually collagen is a kind of protein, Fang told the Global Times Monday. Compared with normal protein, collagen is not a high-quality one because it even lacks two amino acids, said Fang, who has gained a reputation for publicly speaking out against alleged fraud in society.

People can take collagen from common animal products and there is no need to take expensive collagen products, according to Fang.

Collagen products are made from cheap eatable animal parts, such as fish skin, which is supposed to be the leftover of other animal foods, Fang said.

The price of a set of Ibelieve collage oral liquid (1500 ml in total) on tmall.com is 1,080 yuan ($177.23). By press time, 481 sets of the collage had been sold since it came to market, according to the online sales record.

Some customers have been taken in by the claims made by collagen producers that collagen can bring their youth back and improve skin condition but it is wrong, Fang said.

Collagen will be decomposed to amino acid and then absorbed by the body, Fang said, noting collagen cannot come into the skin directly and prop up the skin.

It is hard to judge the function of collagen, which has been discussed for many years, especially in Japan, where the trend of taking oral collagen began, a nutrition expert who asked to remain anonymous told the Global Times Monday, noting there is no official standard to measure its effect on skin.

"All I can say is that collagen products are not harmful to health as long as they are produced by qualified makers," the anonymous expert said.

The expert also said that the country's health authorities has defined collagen products as food rather than health products in China.

Manufacturing health products requires certain qualifications that are different from manufacturing food, Shen Jian, a lawyer from Haodong Law Firm, told the Global Times Monday, noting companies producing health products should apply for the certificates from the very start of registration.

Moreover, according to the advertising law, manufacturers cannot claim any treatment functions in the advertisements of foods, Shen said.

The Ibelieve collagen is labeled as food, and other collagen products such as collagen powder produced by healthcare company By-Health are also labeled as food, according to the introduction on their online stores.

Fang also pointed out in his blog article on November 26 that Lin's company had not finished its registration in Shanghai when the company started to sell products in the Chinese mainland.

The company admitted that on its Weibo account on November 25 and said the company was registered in Taiwan and is still going through the registration process in Shanghai.

The company's name and profile cannot be found on the website of Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce by press time.

A company cannot start its business when it has not been fully registered, and registration in Taiwan has no legal position in the Chinese mainland, Shen said.

The company and Lin's assistant refused to comment when reached by the Global Times Monday.