Silab recently staged at two-day event in and around Brive, France, to inaugurate its new research facility and to explore some key cosmetic sector issues.
The new 3,500 m2 R&D facility near Brive has been created through an investment of €6.5 million and further strengthens the company’s position in the marketplace. Fifty-five of the company’s 171 staff work in research, and R&D costs represent more than 20% of the company’s annual turnover.
A further investment of €15 million will be made in 2009/2010 to increase production space. Average year-on-year turnover growth is 15%, and the average age of personnel is 32 years. Silab emphasised to guests how it invests in staff training, helping individuals to attain personal objectives, and in its continuing concentration on research.
Brigitte Closs-Gonthier, research and development manager, stressed to Personal Care Europe that a significant challenge was maintaining a programme to develop active ingredients which satisfied criteria relating to both innovation and safety.
She said the company’s managerial and financial independence assisted it in meeting this challenge. Resources could be allocated to promising research paths without delay, and quick responses made to deliver ingredients into the marketplace – market information was continually gathered and assessed. Furthermore, Brigitte Closs-Gonthier said, rapid introduction of ingredients to the market was assisted by streamlined testing systems, and she added that the scientific working scope of the company was extended through external laboratories, and universities.
Information prepared for a seminar programme included that on molecular modelling and the role it plays in conformational analysis. Another subject was the importance of imaging technologies and processing in understanding the action of mechanisms of active ingredients and evaluating their effectiveness.
Thierry Cruchon, Silab general manager, underlined at the conclusion of the seminar how considerably the company had moved forward in the past few years. Further emphasis had been placed on efficiency, green chemistry, safety, sustainability and social responsibility, he said. Special focus was given, following the seminar sessions, to the first award winner selected by La Fondation d’Enterprise SILAB – Jean Paufique to receive specially directed funding.
The award winner, Juan Garcia Valero, a young researcher from Spain, had considerably impressed a panel of judges. He is preparing a thesis at the Institute for the Biology and Chemistry of Proteins in Lyons, France, as part of the “Apoptosis et Oncogenesis” team directed by Professor Germain Gillet.
The team has, for a number of years, been working on the key regulators of apoptosis: the Bcl-2 family whose expression is deregulated in a large number of human tumours including melanomas. Juan Garcia Valero’s project, named POROS, seeks both to gain a better understanding of how proteins in the Bcl-2 family work and to identify the determinants responsible for their localisation in the mitochondrial membranes. This line of research opens the way to therapeutic applications.
Jean Paufique, CEO of Silab, said the foundation, which he established, was of tremendous importance to him, and reflected the humanist element of the company’s ethos. Silab continues to fully concentrate on providing the cosmetic industry with efficient natural active molecules that are produced by bio-transformation and that can be easily incorporated in formulations. It provides a range of eco-friendly, innovative and unique ingredients for the fields of skin care, sun care and hair care. The efficiency and safety of every active ingredient is established through in vitro and in vivo tests – made by the company and by independent specialised laboratories.
