On the 2nd of July, Debut and L’Oreal announced a new partnership, which has been built on the goal of developing over a dozen vital, bio-identical ingredients, which will become replacements for conventionally sourced beauty and personal care product ingredients. These new ingredients will be replacing all of the ‘normal’ ingredients which are currently used within L’Oreal’s global beauty and personal care brands, such as skin, hair, fragrance and colour cosmetics.

At the moment, the beauty and personal care market around the world, has a value of $646 billion and this value, according to Statista, is predicted to grow to an annual rate of 3.33%. Therefore, these statistics and the issues surrounding climate change, worsening pollution and the increasing demand for natural resources, have led these companies to this partnership and to sourcing more sustainable ingredients.

One pathway towards a solution, is synthetic biology, which was described by Boston Consulting Group, as ‘the manufacturing paradigm of the future’. This method has the potential to create bio-identical, alternative ingredients, which can go into the making of sustainable beauty. By making these products at the quantity and quality required, Debut will clearly be an excellent partner for L’Oreal’s global R&D efforts, as the partnership will help L’Oreal to meet their Future sustainability commitments, without compromising on the quality of their products.

Debut is a leader in the biotech beauty industry and the business is well-known as a vertically integrated biotechnology company. Now that the partnership has been created, Debut’s role will be to create a new bio-based ingredient, through using the advanced biomanufacturing processes. These processes will combine fermentation and cell-free technology in order to create the innovative new products and to do this whilst replacing conventional methods.

Debut Founder and CEO, Joshua Britton, Ph.D., commented, "Creating bio-identical ingredients at scale helps preserve global biodiversity and secure responsible ingredient supply chains while continuing to prioritize 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 catalyze this transformative shift in beauty." 

Global Managing Director of Augmented Beauty and Open Innovation at L'Oréal Groupe, Guive Balooch, mentioned, "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."

Britton added, "Our mission is to pioneer the shift to biotechnology. We capture value across the entire supply chain, ensuring that Debut's bio-identical and novel ingredients and products satisfy the huge global market demand for next-generation sustainable beauty. The beauty industry will be transformed, to the lasting benefit of people and planet".