The skin protects our bodies against the outside world. It is coated by an acid mantle that kills germs. Skin glands produce oils and sweat to keep dirt and pollutants out. But unwelcome intruders aren’t all that’s stopped in this way. The active ingredients contained in creams and ointments often need help to make it through the skin’s barrier as well. To resolve this problem, the cosmetics industry has borrowed special technologies from medicine. These technologies, which are known as delivery systems, can bring cosmetic products to their target.
Infinitec specializes in such delivery systems. Based in Barcelona, Spain, this biotech company combines high-performance active ingredients with innovative delivery systems. “This not only stabilizes the active ingredients in the finished goods but also precisely delivers these ingredients to their target at the cellular and even the intracellular level,” says Natascia Grimaldi, who heads Infinitec’s research and development department. She is sitting in a glass conference room with sales director Marta Gil. About a dozen computer workstations can be seen through the windows, with testing rooms behind them. Here at the Barcelona Science Park, dozens of research-based companies have their offices and laboratories—and share the expensive facilities and equipment that the Science Park has to offer.
The 60 Infinitec employees have been part of Evonik since July 2021. The acquisition of this company has provided Evonik with the largest portfolio of delivery systems in the cosmetics market. “Integrating Infinitec into Evonik allows us to globalize their business,” says Thomas Satzinger, who is responsible for the strategic orientation of the Care Solutions business line at Evonik and drove the acquisition. The acquisition portfolio of Care Solutions already includes numerous companies specializing in active ingredients as well as functional specialty ingredients. The delivery systems from Barcelona are one component that strengthens our position as a solution provider for the cosmetic industry. These systems can be combined with plant extracts, for example, to offer our customers differentiating claims (see the interview).
Launched with active ingredient complexes
When Infinitec was founded in 2006, the delivery systems did not play a major role in the company’s strategy, sales director Gil recounts. At that time the company’s founders, Alfons Hidalgo and Josep Maria Borràs, wanted to produce active ingredients for international cosmetics companies. Since they came from a sales background, they chiefly recruited natural scientists, whose research revealed that there was still plenty of room for innovation when it came to transporting active ingredients into the skin. “In 2017 we made the decision to specialize in delivery systems,” Gil says. “Today most of our technologies are patented,” adds Grimaldi. In total, the company offers over 40 active ingredients and a broad portfolio of delivery system technologies.
The systems use such exotic substances as gold or platinum, algae extracts or carnauba wax, and bear equally exotic names such as Skin Shuttle, Cosmetic Drone, and Trojan®. These names are significant, say Gil and Grimaldi. They create an image in the minds of customers—mainly wholesalers and intermediaries—of how the system works. The image is that of a transport vehicle or a remote-controlled drone that delivers its cargo precisely to its destination. “We’re trying to think in terms of marketing and technology together,” Gil says. “This is how we’re making our products better known in the industry.”
But this is only a first step. The second and more important step is to educate the sector. For many years, delivery systems eked out a niche existence. For a long time their primary role was seen as stabilizing—active ingredients cannot be allowed to change color or shape when they are in contact with other substances. However, delivery systems can do a lot more.
This is particularly true of Trojan® Q10, which combines a delivery system with an active ingredient. It is microscopically small, with a diameter of just 150 to 300 nanometers—one hundredth the size of a human cell. When added to a cream, Trojan® Q10 acts as a mitochondrial rejuvenator, reduces wrinkles, and improves the elasticity of the skin. All of this is thanks to the coenzyme Q10, which is encapsulated and delivered to the mitochondria of skin cells. “This is our most advanced product,” says Grimaldi. You won’t find anything else like it on the cosmetics market. Trojan® is a double target delivery system, which is able to first target specific cells in the skin and then their mitochondria. The capsules are made of the copolymer PLGA (poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)), which Infinitec purchases from Evonik.
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A Decorated Trojan horse
If Q10 is added at the right moment, the long-chain PLGA molecules encapsulate the active ingredient—the Trojan horse is loaded, so to speak. In the next step, the outer shell is, as Grimaldi puts it, “decorated” with two different peptides, which protrude outward like spikes. The first type of peptide is designed to dock onto membrane proteins of special skin cells called fibroblasts. There they activate a carrier that transports the Trojan® capsule into the cell interior. If Trojan® Q10 meets a mitochondrion there, the second type of surface peptide comes into play. These peptides are detected and the capsule is guided inside, where the Q10 is released.
Disguised to the destination
This is how the coenzyme Q10 reaches its destination.
“We spent four years researching the sequences for the surface peptides,” Grimaldi says. This work paid off. The highly reactive Q10 is only released within the mitochondria and is protected from reactive molecules in the organism beforehand. Infinitec has conducted a number of studies that demonstrate these results. Thanks to Trojan® Q10, mitochondria are better protected against oxidative stress—they are more active and produce more energy in the form of ATP. This enables their skin cells to produce more collagen, which improves the appearance of the skin. In order to make such statements, which are extremely important for marketing in the cosmetics industry, Grimaldi’s team compared two identical creams: one that contains Trojan® Q10 and another that contains Q10. In the study, 18 subjects applied one cream to the left side of their face and the other to the right side twice a day for 56 days.
The result: “Trojan® Q10 significantly rejuvenated and tightened the skin. And it did so with a 3,000-fold lower dose of Q10,” Grimaldi explains. Because the coenzyme reaches the most effective site of action, only a very small amount is needed. “We need much less of the raw materials to achieve a level of efficacy that is similar to that of the competition,” Gil says. “In many cases, our products are even better.”
There is always a rocky road to such success. “Science is hard and frustrating,” says Grimaldi. Nevertheless, the 13 men and women who now work at the research and development department keep on finding solutions. Grimaldi has recruited most of the team members herself. They include Camila Folle, 36. She is an experimental chemist whom we see using a precision balance to mix a new formulation for an established product: PhytosteCol®, a delivery system based on phytosterol—the plant equivalent of animal cholesterol. Folle’s goal is to substitute ingredients in order to launch PhytosteCol on the Chinese market. To ensure that the strict access restrictions are met, the chemist is testing a certified Evonik emulsifier made of renewable raw materials: Tego® Care PBS 6MB. This emulsifier has to demonstrate its capabilities in PhytosteCol.
A cream for all climates
“I’m subjecting it to a lot of different challenges,” Folle says, pointing to a shelf full of transparent jars under a lamp. Some of the jars are wrapped in aluminum foil, others are not. Here, Folle is testing to find out how the creams behave in daylight. She has placed other jars in a kind of oven at 45 degrees Celsius, while still others are exposed to 75 percent humidity. This is done to simulate the climate in different regions of the world. “The oil and water phases in the cream must not separate in any environment. And the color should hardly change,” explains Folle as she holds up two jars. One is lighter, the other darker. Folle says that “the second cream should still be as light as the first, even weeks later.” It will still take her some time to find the optimal formulation. Once she has done so, it will be scaled up.
The cosmetic recipes tested in the laboratory are sent to Montornès del Vallès, or more precisely to the industrial area of this small town about 30 kilometers northeast of Barcelona. Infinitec’s state-of-the-art production plant is located here behind the concrete walls of a 1,000-square-meter facility, which is next to a highway.
Gilded vitamin C
Ismael Darwish is in charge of operations, of which the production department is a part. At the heart of the facility is a 375-square-meter cleanroom. Here ventilators hum on the ceiling, replacing the air 15 times per hour and meticulously filtering it.
Darwish wears a mask, a hairnet, a gown, and lab shoes. Nothing is allowed to contaminate the valuable raw materials. In his hand Darwish holds a small bowl full of orange crumbs: tetrachloroauric(III) acid trihydrate, which is also known as brown gold chloride. This exclusive substance is added to the delivery system Golden C, which serves to stabilize ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Tiny amounts are sufficient. “We have perhaps 50 grams here,” says Darwish. “That enables us to produce hundreds of kilograms of Golden C.”
»This mindset is an inspiration. «
Thomas Satzinger Evonik strategist
Other costly ingredients Darwish works with include platinum, sapphire dust, and diamond dust, which are stored in small inconspicuous vials. But if you ask him what is the most valuable raw material, he will reply “water.” If that gets contaminated, it will endanger entire days of production.
The water—which does not come from the tap, but is especially delivered—is therefore painstakingly purified and monitored. It is fed directly into the three large mixing reactors via a pipe system. This is where the many ingredients of the cosmetic products are stirred together, often for hours. Everything is monitored, temperature-controlled, and dosed by computers.
A startup spirit at Evonik
Darwish is a pharmacist. He has been working for the company for three and a half years. During this time, he says, he has accompanied Infinitec on its journey from being a small enterprise to a medium-size company that speaks the language of corporations. Each step is documented. “What isn’t written down doesn’t exist,” he says.
In total, Darwish oversees eight units, ranging from logistics to customer service, with just 20 employees. “Everyone has to be replaceable when they’re sick or on vacation, so that production doesn’t stop,” he says. Accordingly he has trained his team so that every member can take on someone else’s main tasks.
The Spaniards’ orientation toward sustainability and their entrepreneurial mindset also impressed Evonik strategist Satzinger and ultimately gave rise to the idea of acquiring Infinitec. “This mindset is an inspiration. We want all of our employees to think as entrepreneurs, make fast decisions, and take calculated risks whenever they are meaningful for the business.,” he says.
