Personal Care Magazine Asia Pacific

 

Removing guesswork from skin care and hair care

September 2008
Grant Gibson Ph.D. – Emergent Technologies, USA Damon Borich M.D. – Reveal Sciences, USA The personal care industry represents a more than US$300 billion worldwide market. As the global consumer becomes savvier through exposure to electronic media and advertising, the burden of proof for product claims is raised for new entrants to the market or for new formulations of existing products.

Unsubstantiated product claims and consumer suspicion influence buying decisions and drive the need for demonstrable proof of proper product selection and performance. At the same time, with advancements in cellular and molecular biology, an exciting new generation of products with novel anti-ageing, anti-wrinkle, clarifying, and beautifying elements are emerging. Unfortunately, many of these formulations are coming under scrutiny from skeptical consumers who are eager to see scientific data to support whether the product will work for them personally.

Need to personalize

Personal care describes a market composed of products purchased by, monitored by, applied by and applied to an individual person as a single customer. And yet, while this industry has succeeded in branding or messaging to the individual consumer, manufacturers and suppliers have fallen short of empowering an individual with truly personalised products.

Imagine a typical scenario: a person is looking for a product to relieve dry, itchy skin and to reduce redness. Research has shown that there are a wide variety of underlying biological elements and causative agents leading to such skin symptoms, including poor skin barrier function, irritants, surfactants, allergies, bacteria, oxidation/sun-damage, inflammation, and others. Typical questionnaires and even 3-D imaging devices cannot discern the underlying cause, so the consumer must undergo a trial-and-error approach. If the right product is not matched with the right skin condition then the original symptoms may persist, leading to loss of confidence in the product or brand that was used.

Innovated

Reveal Sciences has created a new formulation system that enhances personal care by delivering an interactive product experience, removing the guesswork, unreliability, and subjective analysis of current testing systems, product selection and product usage. The company’s formulation technology is based on supramolecular recognition and visible indicator chemistry, combined in various forms to detect the presence of specific biological elements on the skin or hair, or to otherwise cause a colour change to indicate the presence of such elements or related conditions. The technology will enable “companion” testing products that match a person’s skin or hair condition to a specific product, or to ensure product compliance such as a facial mask changing colours after the appropriate amount of time on the skin.

In November 2007 Reveal Sciences was formed as a subsidiary of Beacon Sciences, a biotech company founded a year earlier on the pioneering chemistry of Eric Anslyn, Ph.D., University of Texas. Through the launch of Beacon Sciences into the clinical, industrial processing, and biodefense markets, it became clear to the company’s management that market demand for personal care applications would warrant a specialised focus of their scientific team, and so Reveal Sciences was spun-out to meet this demand.

Multiple interactions with leading consumer health companies indicated a strong need for consumer-focused innovation in personal care products and testing. With the advances in manufacturing, formulation technologies, distribution, and internet-based sales of consumer products, it was clear to leading personal care companies that product differentiation had to go well beyond traditional advertising, packaging, and glorified non-scientific claims. It is advantageous to be able to use an innovative detection and formulation platform for substantial product differentiation in burgeoning personal care markets.

Synthetic receptors

While Dr Anslyn’s technology is really a combination of a number of chemical engineering tools and techniques, at their core they can be described as novel “synthetic receptors” that mimic the biological specificity of an antibody or an enzyme – biological molecules that exhibit the greatest specificity and binding affinity in all of nature. “The technologies and techniques my laboratory uses to create supramolecular binding chemistries are the result of decades of development coupled with the latest in combinatorial chemistry and a great deal of creativity,” says Dr Anslyn, who is chief scientist of Beacon Sciences.

Dr Anslyn is able to create a synthetic receptor to a targeted molecule such as a medical biomarker, a component of an industrial process, a biothreat agent, or a biological element for skin or hair care. By creating these specialised binding formulations for personal care applications, a whole new level of product-consumer interaction is possible, including companion tests matching a skin or hair condition to a specific product.

A Reveal formulation and testing “tool set” enables a variety of results to be obtained – ranging from qualitative to quantitative measurement of skin conditions as well as colour-changing formulations triggered by time, pH, or other environmental changes.

Analysis system

The first manifestation of Reveal’s technology is its CareType Analysis System. The system enables detection of biological elements that correlate to certain skin and hair conditions. By reporting accurate information about a skin or hair type, a customer can be better matched to a specific product, such as an anti-ageing cream or a dry skin lotion. This informative product experience promises not only to facilitate better product matching, but also to build brand confidence.

Thomas A. Harlan, CEO of Reveal Sciences, says: “The system combines novel optical imaging hardware modules with state-of-the-art custom image processing algorithms that work together to analyse skin and hair samples from consumers.” The product made its debut at the in-cosmetics event in Amsterdam this year. The CareType system is based on simple non-invasive, painless tissue sample acquisition that can be performed in seconds by the consumer to evaluate a variety of skin and hair conditions. This is accomplished by a unique process that samples a superficial layer of skin or hair strands and images the sample under proprietary optical interrogation conditions to produce an image. The image is then processed using defined algorithms that can decipher and quantitatively report a variety of conditions that drive appropriate product selection. Measurable conditions range from standard skin moisture levels, dryness, scaling, irritation, and sensitivity to more specific assays that define ageing parameters, damage, contaminants, specific toxins and, most importantly, skin and hair product regimen performance and improvement.

Focus on skin analysis

Current focus is on skin analysis, including quantitative measurement of biological elements that cause sensitive skin, UV and oxidative damage, and ageing-associated conditions. With the prototype CareType Skin Analysis System, a sample is obtained using a simple non-invasive contact method. This sample is incorporated into a carrier cartridge that is inserted into the reader system. The reader captures an image of the sample strip, and software correlates the data to provide valuable information.

Evidence required

Thomas A. Harlan says: “The average consumer and ageing baby boomer, although conscious about health and beauty, remain skeptical about ‘miracle creams’ and products. These consumers are willing to pay a premium for such products but demand evidence of performance through directly visible results.” Industry leaders in the personal care market are cognisant of this trend and are seeking technologies that clearly demonstrate the competitive advantage of their molecular breakthroughs in skin and hair care. The system rapidly identifies and selects products based on individual customer needs and tracks personal care product performance.

The system is a vertically integrated solution that provides real-time feedback for:

  • Clinical research and industry.
  • The professional salon, spa and aesthetician.
  • Retail counter and consumer home health.

Trends

The global cosmetics and personal care markets are estimated at more than US$300 billion in business per year.

(Source: Personal Care Products – A Global Outlook April 2007, Global Industry Analysts) In particular, the skin care market has been characterised by the following trends:

  • Growing use of UV filters.
  • Shift towards mass market.
  • Move from prescription to OTC status.
  • Rising popularity of own label products.
  • Extensive use of vitamins A and C.

These trends coupled with growth and competition within the hair care segment of personal care provide a positive scenario for products and technologies that are able to deliver more information to the consumer while enabling product differentiation and branding opportunities. Reveal is well-positioned to capitalise on these market needs and trends, with an innovative platform for multiple products and customer groups. The company’s first goal is to gain market approval of the CareType system in a research instrumentation setting, followed by focusing on the professional spa or salon, and ultimately to delivery a validated system to the retail consumer market. The company is seeking commercialisation partners to achieve these milestones and is also pursuing a direct marketing approach for some applications. The company seeks to enter into licensing agreements for at least three distinct fields within personal care: industrial or clinical research, professional spas and salons, and retail cosmetics or home self-testing.

Industrial/clinical research market

There is a clear need for clinical tools that cosmetic and personal care product research and development groups can use to express and define relevant product benefits. The company will use this research market to launch the initial device in an environment that will have the additional benefit of creating/expanding awareness of the system in the larger marketplace. This market consists of internal research and development groups at major cosmetic, personal care, and cosmeceutical companies as well as independent research labs, contract manufacturing QA/QC departments, and consumer testing/product validation groups.

Professional spa and salon market

Following its introduction and refinement in the research market, the company will seek appropriate cosmetic retail partners for the systems. The company envisages these partners either licensing the system on an exclusive basis or simply purchasing systems on a non-exclusive basis to use as point-of-sale consulting tool for product regimen evaluation. This market consists of high-end vertically integrated standalone cosmetic stores (such as MAC, Sephora), multi-product line cosmetic stores and beauty salons, spas, and/or department stores. Whether exclusive or not, the company plans for significant revenues in this market from consumables, such as test strips, and software modification/ customisation for individual product lines.

Retail cosmetics sales and home self-testing market

Reveal will also seek to partner with cosmetic companies themselves to provide customised tests and assays based on existing or new product lines. In this model, the company would benefit from licensing systems to individual companies to brand and place in key opinion leader markets or as use a companion diagnostic and monitoring device.

Core science and business base

Reveal Sciences is funded and managed by Emergent Technologies, Inc. (ETI) and its Fund IV, an investment fund dedicated to commercialising ground-breaking technologies from the University of Texas System. The company is based in Austin, Texas, where it uses approximately 8,000 square feet of common laboratory space provided by ETI for research and development.

At its core, Reveal remains a science company focused on technology innovation, leaving the product development and marketing to its commercial partners. Since the debut of the CareType system, Reveal has been aggressively pursuing a number of business development opportunities in the above key areas. “We fully expect to have multiple products on the market within the near future, whether launched directly by Reveal or by one of our commercial partners,” Thomas A. Harlan says.

THE CARETYPE SYSTEM
The CareType system will be initially focused on utilising pre-existing industry standard measurements, via tape stripping, such as those for skin dryness, scaling, irritation, and wrinkling. Assay development expertise will broaden the platform with new assays based on its synthetic receptor technology and colour-changing technologies.

Competitive advantages of these enhancements include:

  • Real-time user feedback via easy-to-see visual and sensory cues.
  • Customised solutions for specific uses and formulations.
  • Simple integration into existing products – easy for consumers to understand.
  • Personalised results with actionable information.
  • Low cost to consumers with high return.
  • Empowering of consumers by providing product specific biofeedback and/or modifying the interactive product experience.