Ascenta Health Ltd. in Dartmouth has received a $500,000 repayable loan from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to support the marketing of Ascenta Skin, its first omega-3-based product for the beauty market.

Founded a decade ago by CEO Marc St-Onge, Ascenta Health has developed a dominant position in the Canadian natural health product market with its NutraSea brand of nutritional products made naturally from omega-3 fatty acids.

Four years ago, St-Onge and his team became aware of scientific research showing that omega-3 EPA and DHA (the fatty oils found in such fish as salmon) not only have nutritional benefits for the heart and joints but can also ben-efit the skin. The studies showed that omega-3 can increase collagens and hydration in the skin and reduce redness and irritation.

So the company spent four years developing Ascenta Skin, which it launched in March. The product is taken orally, which is why its marketing campaign features the tagline, “Beauty comes from within.” In an interview following the announcement of the ACOA funding, St-Onge said the product can improve deeper layers of the skin than others that are applied externally.

 “We can actually deliver all these active ingredients to the right layer of the skin because it’s taken internally,” he said.

The launch of Ascenta Skin has meant the company — with a workforce that has grown to about 65 from five when it began in 2003 — has had to learn about marketing in the health and beauty market, as well as the health food segment. That mission got a boost in January when St-Onge secured a meeting with Nicky Kinnaird, founder of the influential British cosmetics retailer Space NK.

St-Onge said Kinnaird immediately understood the science behind Ascenta Skin and agreed to stock the product in her shops in Manhattan, where she was spearheading expansion into the U.S. market. That endorsement gave the product validation, and it has since received glowing reviews in some of the world’s leading glossy magazines, including Cosmopolitan, Glamour and Vogue.

The company is trying to increase sales of its nutritional products in the U.S., working with wholesalers to introduce Ascenta products to health food chains and others. St-Onge said the company’s goal is to triple the number of retail outlets it is in to 12,000 by 2014.

Ascenta received $4 million in venture capital financing from Avrio Ventures of Calgary in 2009, but St-Onge said there are no plans to raise more money in the near future.

ACOA announced the funding along with a $500,000 loan to Halifax-based Novawise Inc., which has technology that allows companies to gather data through their sales agents in the field. Novawise received a loan of the same size from ACOA last August and has since doubled its workforce to 20 people. (Disclosure: ACOA is a client of Entrevestor.)

 “When you see taxpayers’ dollars being used so well, as they are here in Nova Scotia for these two projects, you feel really good about it,” said Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, who announced the funding.