Dr Juan Escudero is a former Clariant and Lipotec executive who is now CEO at LipoTrue. Based near Barcelona and launched in 2016, LipoTrue is a developer of active ingredients for personal care based on four proprietary platforms
Who are LipoTrue?
LipoTrue is a start-up, but only from the turnover point of view as our team has over 100 years of combined experience in the cosmetics industry and we know the needs of the market very well. We have developed a very flexible company structure. LipoTrue is a R&D central engine, carrying out the R&D, commercialization and marketing of active ingredients through different platforms. Each of the platforms is specialized in a different development process to develop a line of active ingredients. This structure gives us the freedom to integrate new platforms into the system adapting to the fast-changing cosmetic market.
Last year, we launched the company at In-Cosmetics Paris 2016 and were also present at the shows in New York, São Paulo and Bangkok. We are developing high technology active ingredients for the global market and our goal is to provide the innovative solutions to brand-owners worldwide. This year, we are developing our sales structures both in Europe and USA, and further introducing more new products.
What products have you launched so far?
Last year, we launched Epitensive, Scelleye and Pureoxin from our Wild Plants as Biofactories platform. This platform is a plant-based transient expression system for the production of human proteins, combined with a downstream purification process that gives products an almost pharmaceutical purity. This year we are launching from our Marine Bio-Research platform: Seadermium, Sirtalice and Pauseîle. These active ingredients are from Reunion and Mauritius Islands, discovered during an expedition around the world. From this expedition through the world’s seas and other collections yet to be unveiled, we have discovered about 22,000 different microorganisms, some of them previously unknown. Using our Big Data Analytics platform of ‘omics’, like transcriptomics, epigenomics, metabolomics, we have so far characterised 2,000 of them in terms of all the parameters of the waters where we found them and which family is responsible for which functionality in the final product. This is really innovative and enables us to cover maybe five different effects in a single product, which is what customers are increasingly demanding.
What is your other platform?
In Silico & Biomimetic Design, which produces peptides in solid phase, using computational methods to accelerate the development process to discover peptides of between three and ten amino acids. We are now working on plugging the gap between ten and 50, to make us a global supplier of all lengths of proteins and peptides using our different technologies.
What are your future development plans?
‘Omics’ techniques also enable us to develop our products faster. A year ago, we had no products, now we have seven, and by the end of this year, we aim to have at least 12. We estimate that within three years our portfolio will span to 40 to 50 active ingredients with outstanding efficacies. We are working very hard to maximise our capabilities and reduce as much as possible the time to market, both in terms of developing the products and also in commercial and marketing time. Exhibitions like this are very important to us, not only to discuss the products we are launching but also to introduce our much broader innovation portfolio. We are a small company but with the ambition to grow and become a referent in the cosmetic market.
