New partnership consolidates Symrise's lead in natural cosmetics

As of yesterday, the companies merged together to further develop Symrise's experience, focusing mainly on creating all natural cosmetic active ingredients and aroma molecules. Achim Daub, member of the managing board of Symrise, responsible for the Scent & Care division said in a statement, "In the growing cosmeceutical market we identified a huge potential for our company following an innovation-orientated product strategy using bioactive natural compounds". ​​By drawing on the expertise of both companies, Symrise is not only hoping to surge forward in the natural cosmetics industry, but is aiming to enhance its expertise in the lucrative natural skin and hair care markets. Leaders in the field of generating and utilising diverse natural product compound libraries, AnalytiCon was brought into the partnership to provide Symrise with this know-how, also adding expert knowledge in natural product specific structural optimisation. Likewise, Brain, a leading industrial biotechnology company, is set to assist Symrise by making available its customised cellular based screening platforms 'with the goal to identify novel bioactive substances for innovative substances'. "The co-operation with the two leading bio-tech companies perfectly supplements our own research and development strategies"​ Daub said. Dr. Lutz Müller-Kuhrt, CEO of AnalytiCon mirrored this enthusiasm regarding the successful potential of the partnership, "The co-operation between Symrise, Brain and AnalytiCon supports the increasing relevance of natural product based discovery of active agents in the cosmetics industry​," "The intensive and complementary co-operation of the three partners enables a rapid and highly efficient identification, optimisation and development of innovative compounds for high value cosmetics, thus ensuring market shares for our industrial partner in a strongly growing field of business." ​​The announcement follows recent news from Symrise that, following a period of restructuring and strong sales growth in 2006, focus on new products and improvement to services is likely to drive strong market growth in 2007. The company announced that sales grew by 7 per cent in 2006 to reach €1.229bn, a figure the company said was largely attributable to the successful implementation of its realignment. Fast market growth was achieved through an emphasis on active cosmetic ingredients, UV filters, special aroma chemicals and senses, together with fine fragrances, which all recorded double-digit growth. Likewise the company said that its ingredients ended up in many high profile product launches during the course of 2006, including the Red Delicious line from Donna Karen, as well as Jil Sander's Style and Givenchy's Amarige Mariage.