Biotechnology Execs Discuss the Industrys Impact on Beauty – Yahoo Lifestyle

As brands and consumers alike seek out innovation, biotechnology and beauty are increasingly intertwining.

During Beauty Inc @20, Alex Lorestani, chief executive officer and cofounder of Geltor; John Melo, CEO of Amyris, and Barbara Paldus, CEO and founder of Codex Beauty spoke about biotechs impact on beauty with WWDs senior editor Allison Collins.

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For Amyris, its lab-produced squalane has become the companys bread and butter. Were about 70 percent of the world market for squalane, and were expanding the market by 25 percent per year, Melo said. Our sales are growing at about 40 percent per year, and were selling squalane to about 3,000 beauty brands around the world.

Geltor, for its part, produces collagen that is identical to human collagen, and it, too, is tracking upticks in interest. Customers and consumers are beginning to understand what you can really get from biology, its becoming more of an opportunity driver, Lorestani said.

Paldus, who came from a professional background in biotechnology, founded Codex Beauty after the birth of her son. I couldnt find preservative systems that werent fossil fuel-based, she said. Thats how we ended up with biotech ingredients; we were looking for ferments that could actually act as a preservative system.

Sustainability was a major theme, too, as lab-grown alternatives can cause less environmental damage than other sourcing methods. We save 3 million sharks a year with squalane were making through fermentation. Sustainability starts with this idea that once you kill the shark, youre not going to produce any more squalene from that shark. Ours we make from sugarcane, which is a five-year crop, Melo said.

The case was the same with Geltor. We had a third-party perform a lifecycle analysis and we could show that it required 79 percent less water, 50 percent less greenhouse gas and requires 40 percent less land to make proteins through fermentation, Lorestani said.

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The thing with biotechnology today is it can deliver anything across the spectrum, he continued. Theres a really exciting spectrum of products to have and were seeing more and more third-party entities emerge to certify different kinds of products.

Amyris value proposition is two-pronged: not only are ingredients less impactful environmentally, theyre also less expensive, 30 percent less than alternative sources, according to Melo. As we learn about the consumer and the purpose we have for them, theyre all for sustainability. So, it needs to perform as well, or better, then the alternative source, he said. Cost has to be at least the same, or better.

During the Q&A, Paldus said communicating around biotechnology requires a lot of consumer education. Biotechnology is actually natural the proteins and stem cells are 100 percent equivalent to those extracted from plants. Biotech is actually natural 2.0, because youre getting sustainable ingredients that havent been exposed to pollution, she said. These ingredients also often perform better, because theyre undiluted.

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Biotechnology Execs Discuss the Industrys Impact on Beauty - Yahoo Lifestyle