L’Oréal has taken a minority stake in the Chinese biotech firm Veminsyn Biotech (aka Weiming Shiguang) to co-develop sustainable bioactive ingredients for cosmetics and promote their production, KR-Asia and Yicai Global report.
The partnership will harness Veminsyn’s molecular design and biomanufacturing capabilities to advance sustainable and open innovation.
Veminsyn's Focus: Performance × Sustainability
Veminsyn is a technology company focused on the R&D and production of bio-based raw materials. It leverages synthetic biotechnology to balance performance with environmental sustainability. Veminsyn was co-founded by five doctorates from Peking University (State Key Laboratory of Protein and Plant Genetics) and Tsinghua University (Key Laboratory of Industrial Biocatalysis).
Zhao Yaran, Ph.D., CEO and one of the co-founders of Veminsyn, was highlighted by Forbes in the 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2023. At the time, he told Forbes that while companies like L'Oréal and Estée Lauder have their own key ingredients, Chinese skin care brands do not. Zhao, who holds a doctorate in biology from Peking University, saw this as an opportunity.
"What we want to do is to innovate on the materials side, and to replace materials from abroad," Yaran said, in the interview.
In fact, when EqualOcean profiled the biotech company in 2022 for having completed a Series A funding of ~US $13.8 million, it reported Veminsyn had become the upstream raw material supplier of many well-known brands China. These included:
- Zhuben,
- Helius,
- Bloomage Biotech,
- Cistto,
- ClorisLand,
- Peterson's Lab,
- Anewcos and
- KATO.
Screening and Synthesizing Nature's Infinite Potential
Veminsyn's innovation is rooted deeply in its large database of natural active molecules and their properties. This provides theoretical guidance for the design and synthesis of new bioactives. The database includes information on actives in plants, animals and microorganisms, as well as human skin omics.
The company leverages a phage display high throughput process for material screening and strain optimization, which further informs machine learning algorithms. According to the company, this approach has "greatly expanded the application of directed evolution technology in peptide modification and screening" – winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018.
Based on protein structure predictions and design algorithms, the company produces biomaterials with mechanical properties and potential bioactive peptides, and combines them with efficacy evaluation experiments to obtain active molecules and materials for skin care and medical beauty.
Type XVII Collagen Leads the Veminsyn Bioactives Charge
Such materials include one of Veminsyn's core products, Time-COL17-001, that EqualOcean report retains the activity of Type XXVII collagen while allowing it to be absorbed into skin. Type XVII collagen is a transmembrane collagen and "star molecule" that according to Veminsyn, has appeared in top journals in recent years.
"Recombinant collagen is homologous to the human body, will not cause rejection, has a clear mechanism and can directly promote the production of collagen in the body," the company explained.
What's more, Veminsyn implements a "molecular compression" technique to prepare smaller molecules while retaining their activity.
"Small molecular active collagen not only retains the functional activity of collagen, but also makes the molecule smaller, solving the problem that ordinary collagen cannot be absorbed through the skin," the company added.
Expanding Veminsyn Internationally
Clearly, with L’Oréal entering the scene, the Veminsyn's innovative approaches have gained an international audience.
Yaran told EqualOcean in 2022, "We hope to continue to expand to more diverse downstream products and broader international market, and eventually become a global leading supplier of bioactive materials with innovative capabilities."
It appears the Veminsyn is well on its way.
