BiotechXBeautyLabs: A new approach to beauty innovation

"The beauty industry is just beginning its transition to a new generation of biotech ingredients and products. Over the next five to ten years, the current set of active ingredients will become obsolete and new ingredients only dreamt about will become mainstream," said Joshua Britton, Founder & CEO of Debut. Following the recent news of biotechnology company Debut's sustainable ingredient development partnership with L’Oréal, Debut has announced the launch of its formulation development and contract manufacturing business BiotechXBeautyLabs in an effort to 'democratize access to biotech innovations for beauty brands.'

The beauty industry is undergoing significant changes with the introduction of biotechnology-driven solutions. BiotechXBeautyLabs, a new venture by biotech company Debut, aims to address these changes by democratizing access to biotech innovations for beauty brands.

In this CosmeticsDesign Q&A, Joshua Britton, Founder & CEO of Debut, provides insights into the vision and objectives behind BiotechXBeautyLabs, its cost structure, sustainability efforts, and its anticipated impact on the beauty industry. During the discussion, Britton shared an in-depth look at how BiotechXBeautyLabs plans to integrate biotechnology into the beauty sector, ensuring high standards of safety, quality, and innovation.

CDU: Can you share the vision behind the launch of BiotechXBeautyLabs and what inspired​ its creation?​

Joshua Britton (JB)​: At Debut, the parent company of BiotechXBeautyLabs, we partner with the world’s largest beauty conglomerate, L’Oréal, and we also incubate our own brands, such as DEINDE, which we launched earlier this year. We quickly realized there is a mid-point between these two ends of the spectrum: all the beauty brands that want to be part of the biotech beauty movement but are unable to do so due to the prohibitive R&D costs associated with biotech innovation.

That is why we created BiotechXBeautyLabs, namely, to democratize access to biotech and make it accessible to all brands. Our new business unit is a full contract biotech beauty manufacturer that offers novel ingredient discovery through to finished product on the shelf, and everything else in between.

With this unit, any beauty brand globally can work with us if they want 95% bio-based formulations, novel ingredients and true product performance. Our formulation capabilities extend across a range of beauty categories including skincare, body care, hair, color cosmetics and OTC.

The goal: to enable every beauty company in the world to harness product innovation driven by biotech.

CDU: Can you elaborate on the cost structure and how brands can benefit from the no upfront​ R&D expenses?​

JB​: Our overriding goal with BiotechXBeautyLabs is to offer best-in-class biotech ingredients and formulations at accessible price points. When brands work with us, they benefit from formulations featuring novel active ingredients that are higher-performing and truly sustainable, meaning they are not derived from cultivation or petroleum.

Importantly, brands do not have to invest into the science to access our extensive IP portfolio consisting of more than 7,000 proprietary ingredients, and they don’t need to hire formulation chemists. Our in-house formulation team and scientists take care of that too. Before BiotechXBeautyLabs, when brands wanted to source a novel biotech ingredient that differentiated their products, they had to discover the ingredient themselves or license IP from a university, and that was only the beginning.

The ingredient then had to be tested, clinically validated and scaled, which easily costs several million dollars. With BiotechXBeautyLabs, brands now have a one-stop biotech beauty shop. Brands can access tens of millions of dollars of research when they formulate with us.

CDU: How does Debut ensure the sustainability and environmental impact of these ​biotech-enabled products?​

JB​: Sustainability is a non-negotiable for us at BiotechXBeautyLabs. Our biotech ingredients and formulations are 95% bio-based.

Our advanced biomanufacturing facilities minimize environmental impact and drastically reduce carbon emissions, land and water use as well as energy consumption. Sustainability is integral to biotech, allowing us to focus our attention on creating superior, higher-performing ingredients and formulations. 

CDU: With over 7,000 proprietary ingredients in Debut’s IP portfolio, how does BiotechXBeautyLabs plan to utilize this extensive IP to offer breakthrough innovations?​

JB​: BiotechXBeautyLabs uses consumer insights and data to identify emerging trends, and we optimize our ingredients to address advanced consumer needs. We discover new ingredients, rank them compared to current ingredients in the market, and ensure they achieve peak performance and sensorial formulation targets.

That’s why we have 70 PhDs on staff delivering a very science-forward approach. One of the pushbacks we’re seeing right now is the need for brands to show improved product performance, so they are ramming a ton of different ingredients into their formulations, whether it’s niacinamide at 5% or vitamin C at 15 or 20%.

That’s just not the optimal way to formulate. With biotech, we can deliver new and better active ingredients at lower concentrations, so skin sensitization is eliminated. 

CDU: What impact do you anticipate BiotechXBeautyLabs will have on the competitive​ landscape of the beauty industry?​

JB​: There are more than 800 beauty contract manufacturing companies worldwide that offer a similar palette of ingredients and formulation technology. BiotechXBeautyLabs is shaking things up by being the first to offer novel, differentiated and higher-performing ingredients and formulations.

This is a true point of difference in a crowded category. The biotech ingredients and formulations we are bringing to market are incredibly effective. We give brands the ability to say, “Here is a novel ingredient, it is 50X better for you, it’s sustainably made, clinically validated, and it’s safe”.

Brands aren’t just winning with a marketing story; they are winning by delivering tangible results that make consumers look and feel better. 

CDU: How does BiotechXBeautyLabs ensure the highest standards of safety, quality, and​ consistency in its formulations and products?​

JB​: Biotechnology inherently makes ingredients at the highest levels of safety, purity, consistency and quality, and we do so with pharma-like precision. Safety is hard-wired in the way we manufacture ingredients. That’s why the regulatory landscape will always favor biotech over other ways of making ingredients and formulations, such as cultivation and petroleum-based methods.

In fact, our quality systems are far more in line with nutrition than beauty. 

CDU: How do you see the role of biotechnology evolving in the beauty industry, and what part​ will BiotechXBeautyLabs play in that evolution?​

JB​: The beauty industry is just beginning its transition to a new generation of biotech ingredients and products. Over the next five to ten years, the current set of active ingredients will become obsolete and new ingredients only dreamt about will become mainstream. Biotechnology, computational biology and AI will transform the world of beauty.

BiotechXBeautyLabs is leading the way, delivering the safest, highest-performing and most sustainable ingredients and formulations that enable people to be in control of their skin health and expression of self. We are setting a new standard in beauty. That’s what drives us every day to keep breaking new ground.