Progressing the beauty and biotech conversation in 2018

Ever since it first launched onto the industrial biotech scene in 1999, Genomatica has been developing its pioneering toolkit for biology, primarily as the globe opts for sustainable ingredients that support its move from fossil fuels to renewable sources.

As Cosmetics Design reports the bioengineering name’s recent bio-based butylene glycol for personal care and cosmetics, ​we caught up with Damien Perriman, Senior Vice President at Specialty Chemicals at Genomatica to explore the growing beauty and biotechnology pairing.

Harnessing health​

“Today’s consumers are heavily invested in what they put on and in their bodies,”​ Damien Perriman, Senior Vice President at Specialty Chemicals at Genomatica emphasised.  

This proves “a real driving force”​ for the company as it strives to “change the game”​ through bio-based options that create a single step from sugar to chemical items. Once developed, these can then reach the personal care industry.   

Commenting on the factors that have contributed significantly to the biotechnology landscape, Perriman shared: “Big world problems, namely the availability of energy, oil price rises over the last ten years, and political instability pushing private investment and funding towards biofuels and bio-based chemicals.”​

Available opportunity​

As the necessary tools improved, the cosmetics and personal care market grew from an inaccessible niche to viable and important industries for the bio-based ingredients to enter. Once this shift had occurred, companies then had the opportunity to ask where innovation can make a difference.

The ultimate idea is that “the closer you are to the human body, the closer you are to that question and proposition”​, Perriman added. Through connecting opportunities between bio-based process technologies and cosmetics and personal care, companies are now striving to achieve this.   

Asking questions ​

When it comes to manufacturing biological processes for a global audience, developers need to turn to education on what a biological process actually is and what fermentation looks like. Once these are fully understood, the applications for the cosmetics and personal care space become far clearer.

Shedding light on the conversation that now needs to take place, Perriman stated: “Fermentation is the oldest process technology on the planet and were doing it before we knew what it was. We now need to push past the initial inertia and show that sustainable ingredients  are a novel enough idea and relevant in today’s marketplace to answer consumer demands.”​

With a wide range of ingredients available as biotech beauty choices, companies are also analysing the innovation cycle, which is typically three years. While new introductions entering the market has been “slow to date, the pace will pick up as people start to talk about the problems in the industry and push for more investment in the development cycle”.​

Sharing his views on the current challenges of the relationship between beauty and biotechnology, he went on to say: “It’s vital to ask the beauty industry about the key ingredients they are really concerned about.”​