The license agreement with Alto Pharmaceuticals will see Canada-based Skinvisible receive an upfront licensing fee for the exclusive manufacturing and commercial and professional use marketing rights for DermSafe in Canada. The company will also receive a royalty from product sales, it was said in a statement.
The Canada deal marks the second license agreement for the hand sanitizer; the first being with Mayquest Pharmaceuticals to market the product in the South-East Asia countries of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.
Expected increased in sales revenue
Doreen McMorran, vice president of business development and marketing for Skinvisible, told CosmeticsDesign that securing the agreement for Canada is expected to quickly generate sales revenue.
“Canada is a very important country for us as it is deemed a registered country and thus other countries, i.e. China, are able to import the product with the same claims (versus going through an approval process, or even better to do both in tandem),” she said.
Successful clinical trials
In November, the company announced that its alcohol-free hand sanitizer had successfully completed a clinical study showing that it is capable of killing or inactivating the H1N1 virus on humans.
The study showed that DermSafe killed the virus to the same detection level as 70 per cent alcohol. According to Skinvisible, these results allow the company to submit for approval to allow the inclusion of “kills H1N1” on the product label.
Additionally, the sanitizer was also successfully tested in an in-vivo study using the European Standard Method, which is used in a number of European countries and Canada for approval in the healthcare and food services industry.
The results proved the efficacy of DermSafe against bacteria on artificially contaminated hands as compared to the 60 per cent Isopropanol, a typical alcohol used in hand sanitizers, Skinvisible said in a statement.
Effective alternative to alcohol
Terry Howlett, president and CEO of Skinvisible said that the results of the two studies “prove that DermSafe is an effective alternative to alcohol, without the drying and safety issues.”
In relation to the Canadian license agreement, Howlett said Alto Pharmaceuticals “will initially be focused on the commercial sale of DermSafe to schools, the military, business and other commercial and professional establishments that are looking for an unique hand sanitizer made without alcohol.”
DermSafe is formulated with the patented Invisicare technology, which is capable of binding products to the skin for 4 hours or longer, resisting being washed-off. As the product does not need to be constantly reapplied it is a cost-effective option, according to McMorran.