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Volume XXI - Nr.2 - November 2006

Editorial - Keep up with the change

Evolution of the Market

Over recent years the markets of industrialized countries have undergone rapid and deep rooted changes. People we might call “progressive” consumers have shifted the center of gravity of their demands towards innovative products that can provide them with an increasingly better quality of life and help optimize their available time and resources. The credit goes to ever more available technology and to its capillary diffusion which aims at increasing the use of technology.

Acknowledgment of change

Even the sector regarding fine chemistry applied to man has inevitably become aware of, and involved in these changes. This has led to increasingly more specialized products that are guaranteed to be harmless, are of proven efficacy, easy to use, and include competent and definitive documentation and technical support. In other words, nowadays, manufacturers of dermo-pharmaceutical and cosmetic ingredients are being requested to carry out some of the work that was formerly the absolute prerogative of the formulator, who is more and more under pressure by the changing consumer market and its continuous demand for new and differentiated products. The market for skin products is broad, and there is undoubtedly room for all who may want to venture into it, but not everyone is able to fully comply with the very specific and complex demands of this consumer market. Simply supplying the ingredients is no longer the answer to the formulator's needs. The product has to be wrapped in a specialized service package, which is currently required by all quality systems. This ranges from the broadest toxicological guarantees, to qualified formulation support, to complete and exhaustive technical documentation and customer-tailored applicative solutions, which are all services which makeshift producers are unable to provide.

Know your products

When dealing with users, thorough knowledge of your own products and the application trials that have been carried out on them play a fundamental role. The solutions to multifarious problems can only be found through the direct knowledge of the specific disciplines and regulations involved in the study of dermal application related problems. This is an interdisciplinary task which goes far beyond dermo-cosmetic techniques, and calls for competence in the chemical, biochemical and pharmacological sectors. The current position in the sector with regards to Regulations and Standards also requires a great deal of agility to find one's way out of the forest of compulsory and voluntary regulations and specifications that users must or want to follow. Needless to say, those who try to latch onto the success of already existing products by taking advantage of the heightened interest and by attempting to copy them with clumsy imitations, perhaps unsubstantiated documentation and support, are unable to fulfil the requirements of the demanding, modern formulator. Even less credit should be given to the myriad of often alarming and unfounded information which is mainly available on the web, and whose reliability should always be verified.

A serene approach

Modern day formulators should establish a serene relationship with their preferential suppliers of ingredients, including actives and excipients. The formulator needs reliability, consistency of chemical and physical characteristics, good support before and after supply, and intrinsic product quality, so that he need not take up again an already developed and concluded job, especially in a field in which no risk whatsoever is acceptable as far as the desirable benefits are concerned. Although there may be a cost attached to this, it will be largely paid back by a lesser work load and by the quality of the final result. The conventional supply process (product supply) is therefore enriched by a qualified service (problem solving), that is indispensable for creating and consolidating a constructive and satisfactory producer/user relationship.

Vincenzo Rialdi
CEO of Vevy Europe S.p.A.
Deputy Editor of Relata Technica (International Journal on Dermopharmacological Research, Dermopharmaceutical Technology and Related Cosmetic Subjects)
www.relata.info
IRCA Principal Auditor, Pharma GMP Auditor

 

 

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