ISP employs collaborative innovation in personal care

The beauty of collaboration

14 October 2009 00:00  [Source: ICB]

ISP personal care reaches out to generate successful innovation in a new R&D partnership

THE PERSONAL care industry relies heavily on chemical manufacturers for product innovation, but keeping abreast of this dynamic market is not simple. Consumers are particularly fickle when the object is beauty. Their expectations only grow with success, while their desires are in continual flux.

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For suppliers to provide genuine innovation, they must have an accurate understanding of market needs and the infrastructure to address those needs quickly.

Two recent moves by US-based specialty chemical producer International Specialty Products (ISP) show how one leader in the personal care market employs collaboration to tackle these challenges. In January, ISP announced the creation of a dedicated personal care research and development (R&D) initiative, the AVANT Institute. In August, ISP announced an R&D alliance with Cellworks Group, a US-based biotech firm.

"We expect the AVANT Institute to serve as our model for innovation within our personal care business," says Claude Dal Farra, ISP's vice president of R&D.

"The institute will not encompass the entirety of our personal care R&D effort," he explains, "yet it is designed to foster collaboration between scientists and technology developers in the personal care market space, such that new applications and development work is more appropriately directed toward successful solutions for the industry."

The approach is similar to that of Vincience, the French skin care R&D firm acquired by ISP in December 2006, where Dal Farra served as technical director and director of research in new molecules.

"AVANT is representative of the approach we'll use more extensively within ISP going forward to develop new entities within our R&D laboratories, but in collaboration with others that most likely hold one portion of the technical solution," he says. "This collaborative approach is vital because in markets like personal care, we expect to combine biology with chemistry to secure new innovations for customers with benefits that go beyond the capabilities of today's personal care ingredient technologies."

INCREASING THROUGHPUT
The collaboration with US-based Cellworks, announced in August, is a direct outgrowth of the AVANT Institute.

A proteomics-driven life science company, Cellworks has developed a computer modeling technology - Virtual Cells - to predict the preclinical efficacy and toxicity of therapeutics targeting skin diseases, cancer and inflammatory disorders. ISP and Cellworks have adapted the skin-specific platform, Virtual Skin, to model the effects of biofunctional personal care ingredients.

In one recent study, they evaluated two biofunctional ingredient projects that targeted skin pigmentation. Hundreds of biomolecules were assayed, allowing ISP to predict their effects on different skin types before the need for expensive clinical testing, and the accuracy of the results was validated by ISP in the lab.

Future work will look at antiaging compounds and synergies between different biofunctional ingredients.

"Our alliance with Cellworks helps us greatly in this area, allowing us to see probable outcomes without having to rely initially on traditional test methods that may be very lengthy and costly," Dal Farra observes. "Just as high-throughput screening has helped the pharmaceutical industry to hone in on promising drug compounds, it is our hope and expectation that alliances with companies like CellWorks will help us to support new innovations in personal care."

Collaborations are not only external, Dal Farra notes. ISP has more than 275 scientists around the world working on development in more than 50 market application areas. One hundred and fifty are focused on personal care applications - skin care, hair care, sun care and oral care.

"Right now, we are bringing together chemists, materials experts and biologists from within the ISP R&D organization to solve some of the toughest challenges facing the industry today," he says. "The need for new biodegradable polymers, those that better support high-performing, safe, environmentally acceptable end-products remain a major R&D priority.

The company also meets regularly with close customers to share ideas in areas where ISP can provide innovative solutions, he says. "We are confident that ISP is well-aligned with customer needs precisely because the R&D team at ISP takes the time to participate in technical conferences, customer meetings and other events that ultimately shape the R&D agenda."

To evaluate the overall performance of the R&D program, ISP has developed 40 metrics. In addition to the more obvious ones such as patents, ratio of projects started to projects completed and financials, they also include technical service, customer perceptions of ISP R&D and other "outliers", says Dal Farra. "These metrics, taken together, help us see more clearly any adjustments that may be needed to be more productive as a group."

A veteran of R&D with more than 100 patents, Dal Farra takes a pragmatic view toward innovation.

"One of the more liberating aspects of innovation is that it can happen anywhere," he says - not only in R&D, process technology and analytical laboratories, but also in the field. "New molecules, new applications of chemistry and new ways of looking at technical challenges that ultimately lead to a successful result will generally qualify as innovation. Even new packaging demonstrated to improve a production process, safety or shipping can be considered innovation."

MISUSED TERM
However, he adds, the term "innovation" is often misused. "True innovation does not always happen on a schedule, leading some to use the term too early, too much, or in ways outside of its true meaning."

Economic recession tends to take a toll on R&D programs, he acknowledges, often in the form of delayed projects. There is the risk, however, that companies pursuing such measures will have no new products to launch in conjunction with the economic recovery. Managing such difficulties is fundamental to his job, says Dal Farra.

"As R&D professionals, our job is to organize resources in a way that helps our customers accelerate projects, allowing for a rapid rebound in innovation.

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By: Clay Boswell
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