L’Oréal has signed an agreement with Debut, a vertically integrated biotechnology company, to develop and scale biotech ingredients crucial for sustainable beauty.
As per the agreement, both partners will collaborate on creating over a dozen essential bio-identical ingredients.
These will replace the conventionally sourced ingredients used currently in L’Oréal’s global beauty and personal care brands, across skin care, hair care, colour cosmetics, and fragrance.
Debut will develop bio-based ingredients through proprietary advanced biomanufacturing techniques, using fermentation and cell-free technology to replace traditional methods.
The biotechnology company’s processes are said to help develop a new generation of cosmetic bioactive ingredients and products.
These products combine nature with supply chain transparency, safety, purity, consistency, quality, and science-supported data.
Debut founder and CEO Joshua Britton said: “Creating bio-identical ingredients at scale helps preserve global biodiversity and secure responsible ingredient supply chains while continuing to prioritise quality and product performance.
“Debut is committed to creating bio-based formulations for all its beauty products and has unmatched capabilities in biotechnology, formulation and scaling to catalyse this transformative shift in beauty.”
The biotech beauty firm is expected to complement L’Oréal’s worldwide research and development (R&D) initiatives and will support its future sustainability goals.
L’Oréal Groupe augmented beauty and open innovation global managing director Guive Balooch said: “Through this exciting partnership and adoption of breakthrough technology, we are well-positioned to drive the creation of more sustainable and effective products that meet the demands of our consumers and fulfils our duty of care for the planet.
“This long-term agreement with Debut is another example of our commitment to the Open Innovation ecosystem and building the future of beauty by collaborating with best-in-class partners.”
In October last year, Debut closed a $40m Series B funding round led by BOLD, the venture capital fund of L’Oréal.
The funds have been allocated for developing bio-identical and novel fragrance molecules to advance a sustainable future for the fragrance sector.
