Tom Branna, Editor12.04.14
Sometimes, you don’t need employee handbooks to learn a company’s corporate culture. Sometimes, you can see it in the employees themselves. As it celebrates its 30th anniversary, Silab has remained true to its core mission of creating active ingredients for the global beauty industry in a sustainable manner.
“A company without values has no future,” noted Xavier Gaillard, deputy general manager, strategy, Silab. “Independence, excellence and quality are top-of-mind for all the employees at Silab.”
That attitude starts at the top too, where 83-year-old Jean Paufique, founder and chairman of Silab, refuses to slow down.
“Mr. Paufique keeps pushing us,” admitted Gaillard. “He continues to show the way. Science is the motivation for us.”
That drive has enabled Silab to introduce five or six new ingredients every year, expand its facilities, enter new regions and dedicate more resources to research and development. As a percentage of sales, Silab commits 20% of revenues to R&D every year. In fact, since 2001, Silab has invested nearly €50 million to expand its business. No wonder why sales are growing more than 10% a year and reached €33 million (more than $41 million at current exchange rates) in 2013.
“We want to continue to grow at least two times faster than the cosmetics industry,” added Gaillard, who noted the global beauty industry is expected to expand 3.5 to 4.0% on a worldwide basis, in the coming years.
A Rich History
Silab has evolved with, and often ahead, of the beauty industry during the past three decades. The company got its start when Paufique left his position as director of research for infant nutrition at BSN (Danone today) to found Silab. The company’s first product was an animal vaccine. Later, Silab began producing animal-derived cosmetics ingredients. But when bovine spongiform encephalopathy took its toll on the market in 1991, Paufique, an agonomic engineer and microbiologist who studied at the prestigious Institut Pasteur, quickly moved the company to vegetable-based products.
“We were the first to propose that products based on natural, vegetal materials could have the same efficacy as animal-derived ingredients,” recalled Paufique.
During his long career, the Silab founder has witnessed dramatic changes in the cosmetics industry.
“When I started in 1984 the industry was telling nice marketing stories, but was not concerned about the efficacy of the active,” he told Happi. “At that time, the industry made collagen creams derived from veal and veal skin with no link to human skin. Today, our products aren’t adding collagen—we are boosting collagen production in human skin! We are making better products. There is no doubt about that!
That first cosmetic ingredient, called Tensine, was a wheat derivative designed to replace albumin. Tensine is still available. The latest tensor from Silab is Instensyl, a cassava glucan biopolymer that provides immediate smoothing anti-wrinkle properties. Silab maintains that Instensyl improves skin microrelief by more than 60% of volunteers just 30 minutes after application.
Novel Materials
Another new product is Epigenomyl, a material rich in calendula flower oligosaccharides that is said to smooth the skin’s microrelief, reduce wrinkles and increase skin tone. In fact, when incorporated into emulsions at 3%, Epigenomyl improved the perceived age of volunteers. More specifically, the average perceived age of volunteers was three years younger than before treatment with Epigenomyl, according to the company.
Most recently, Silab has entered an entirely new field with the dedication of a new production unit that makes new biological raw materials derived from biotechnology such as yeast and supplies the production lines of Silab manufacturing natural actives. A notable product is Celldetox, a purified alpha-glucan active that is said to detoxify cells by removing altered cell components such as oxidized proteins and peroxidized lipids (autophagy process). The material guarantees cell and tissue longevity and blocks the accumulation of lipofuscin aggregates, according to Silab. The end result is that after 14 days of use, facial features are smoothed and skin radiance is revived. After 28 days, lines are visibly smoothed and tone is evened.
Another product is Unflamagyl, which is rich in yeast biopeptides to regulate communication between senescent cells and their environment. In vivo evaluations found that Unflamagyl significantly improved the appearance of the dermal matrix and reduced wrinkles by decreasing the parameter of negative volume. Nearly 90% of test subjects perceived that lines and wrinkles were significantly less visible and their skin was smoother.
Gaillard said Silab will continue to roll out biotech-derived materials for several important reasons.
“Biotech products are reproducible and are not reliant on external issues such as weather and crop yield,” he observed. “This gives us many new opportunities to create new applications with stronger efficacy in niche markets.”
The biofermentation project has been 10 years in the making at Silab. The operation currently employs 30 people and there is plenty of room for growth.
But regardless of whether a product is produced via chemical or biotechnological processes, all of the materials are manufactured at Silab’s single 10,000m2 site in Brive-la Gaillarde, which boasts three production units and the aforementioned biofermentation unit. Although the company also has offices in the US, China, Brazil and Singapore, all manufacturing takes place in France—which better ensures product quality and efficacy, according to company executives.
In vitro and in vivo tests are conducted on-site, too. Silab can measure 75 parameters on 1,200 test subjects from the local community. In the lab, Silab carries out as many as 38 in vitro studies a week and more than 1,800 each year. The company also cryopreserves 35 billion human cells for future research.
To prove product efficacy, the company has a wide array of imaging equipment, including raman spectroscopy and confocal microscopy. In fact, in one year alone, Silab generated 23,000 images!
And yet, for all that firepower, Gaillard notes that at its core, Silab’s success is due to its staff. Among the company’s 250 employees, 33% serve in the R&D group. Moreover, it’s a young, energetic and well-educated team. The average employee age at Silab is 34, 55% are women and 80% have at least two years of higher education. To keep learning and growing, the company dedicates 8% of its payroll to continuing education.
“We want to attract young people from the best schools. We hire them, train them and help them. (As a result) we have close to zero staff rotation,” noted Paufique.
At the same time, the company aggressively courts experts from outside its corporate walls.
“There are two kinds of research, advanced and applied,” observed Paufique. “Silab is very good at applied research, but you need both and that is why we collaborate.”
For example, in its home market, the company has teamed up with INSERM, the French Institute of Health and Medical Research. Outside France, Silab recently began collaborating with dermatologist Peter Elias of the University of California, San Francisco.
Throughout its history, Silab has patented more than 200 products and studied more than 900 raw materials, all in an effort to uncover active materials that truly benefit cosmetic formulations.
“It could take four years to move from concept to finished product,” noted Paufique. “The science is what drives us. Merely having a nice story about a nice plant won’t hold up over that four year span.”
Philanthropic Efforts
That drive can be found in its employees and its chairman.
“Innovation is what keeps me motivated every day,” explained Paufique, who continues to come to work every day. “I always have new ideas and new projects.”
One of those projects that is close to his heart is The Silab Jean Paufique Foundation, which supports fundamental and applied research dedicated to the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of skin pathologies, especially skin cancer. Paufique’s philanthropic efforts have been widely recognized, but he is most proud of receiving the Croix de Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur—the highest decoration in France—from President François Hollande in 2013.
Very impressive, especially when one considers that Paufique founded Silab when most people are contemplating retirement.
“I am happy to come to work every day and work with the Silab team,” explained Paufique. “That’s what keeps me young!”
With a full pipeline of projects and anti-aging ingredients, Silab is well positioned to keep consumers around the world looking young, too.•
“A company without values has no future,” noted Xavier Gaillard, deputy general manager, strategy, Silab. “Independence, excellence and quality are top-of-mind for all the employees at Silab.”
That attitude starts at the top too, where 83-year-old Jean Paufique, founder and chairman of Silab, refuses to slow down.
“Mr. Paufique keeps pushing us,” admitted Gaillard. “He continues to show the way. Science is the motivation for us.”
That drive has enabled Silab to introduce five or six new ingredients every year, expand its facilities, enter new regions and dedicate more resources to research and development. As a percentage of sales, Silab commits 20% of revenues to R&D every year. In fact, since 2001, Silab has invested nearly €50 million to expand its business. No wonder why sales are growing more than 10% a year and reached €33 million (more than $41 million at current exchange rates) in 2013.
“We want to continue to grow at least two times faster than the cosmetics industry,” added Gaillard, who noted the global beauty industry is expected to expand 3.5 to 4.0% on a worldwide basis, in the coming years.
A Rich History
Silab has evolved with, and often ahead, of the beauty industry during the past three decades. The company got its start when Paufique left his position as director of research for infant nutrition at BSN (Danone today) to found Silab. The company’s first product was an animal vaccine. Later, Silab began producing animal-derived cosmetics ingredients. But when bovine spongiform encephalopathy took its toll on the market in 1991, Paufique, an agonomic engineer and microbiologist who studied at the prestigious Institut Pasteur, quickly moved the company to vegetable-based products.
“We were the first to propose that products based on natural, vegetal materials could have the same efficacy as animal-derived ingredients,” recalled Paufique.
During his long career, the Silab founder has witnessed dramatic changes in the cosmetics industry.
“When I started in 1984 the industry was telling nice marketing stories, but was not concerned about the efficacy of the active,” he told Happi. “At that time, the industry made collagen creams derived from veal and veal skin with no link to human skin. Today, our products aren’t adding collagen—we are boosting collagen production in human skin! We are making better products. There is no doubt about that!
That first cosmetic ingredient, called Tensine, was a wheat derivative designed to replace albumin. Tensine is still available. The latest tensor from Silab is Instensyl, a cassava glucan biopolymer that provides immediate smoothing anti-wrinkle properties. Silab maintains that Instensyl improves skin microrelief by more than 60% of volunteers just 30 minutes after application.
Novel Materials
Another new product is Epigenomyl, a material rich in calendula flower oligosaccharides that is said to smooth the skin’s microrelief, reduce wrinkles and increase skin tone. In fact, when incorporated into emulsions at 3%, Epigenomyl improved the perceived age of volunteers. More specifically, the average perceived age of volunteers was three years younger than before treatment with Epigenomyl, according to the company.
Most recently, Silab has entered an entirely new field with the dedication of a new production unit that makes new biological raw materials derived from biotechnology such as yeast and supplies the production lines of Silab manufacturing natural actives. A notable product is Celldetox, a purified alpha-glucan active that is said to detoxify cells by removing altered cell components such as oxidized proteins and peroxidized lipids (autophagy process). The material guarantees cell and tissue longevity and blocks the accumulation of lipofuscin aggregates, according to Silab. The end result is that after 14 days of use, facial features are smoothed and skin radiance is revived. After 28 days, lines are visibly smoothed and tone is evened.
Another product is Unflamagyl, which is rich in yeast biopeptides to regulate communication between senescent cells and their environment. In vivo evaluations found that Unflamagyl significantly improved the appearance of the dermal matrix and reduced wrinkles by decreasing the parameter of negative volume. Nearly 90% of test subjects perceived that lines and wrinkles were significantly less visible and their skin was smoother.
Gaillard said Silab will continue to roll out biotech-derived materials for several important reasons.
“Biotech products are reproducible and are not reliant on external issues such as weather and crop yield,” he observed. “This gives us many new opportunities to create new applications with stronger efficacy in niche markets.”
The biofermentation project has been 10 years in the making at Silab. The operation currently employs 30 people and there is plenty of room for growth.
But regardless of whether a product is produced via chemical or biotechnological processes, all of the materials are manufactured at Silab’s single 10,000m2 site in Brive-la Gaillarde, which boasts three production units and the aforementioned biofermentation unit. Although the company also has offices in the US, China, Brazil and Singapore, all manufacturing takes place in France—which better ensures product quality and efficacy, according to company executives.
In vitro and in vivo tests are conducted on-site, too. Silab can measure 75 parameters on 1,200 test subjects from the local community. In the lab, Silab carries out as many as 38 in vitro studies a week and more than 1,800 each year. The company also cryopreserves 35 billion human cells for future research.
To prove product efficacy, the company has a wide array of imaging equipment, including raman spectroscopy and confocal microscopy. In fact, in one year alone, Silab generated 23,000 images!
And yet, for all that firepower, Gaillard notes that at its core, Silab’s success is due to its staff. Among the company’s 250 employees, 33% serve in the R&D group. Moreover, it’s a young, energetic and well-educated team. The average employee age at Silab is 34, 55% are women and 80% have at least two years of higher education. To keep learning and growing, the company dedicates 8% of its payroll to continuing education.
“We want to attract young people from the best schools. We hire them, train them and help them. (As a result) we have close to zero staff rotation,” noted Paufique.
At the same time, the company aggressively courts experts from outside its corporate walls.
“There are two kinds of research, advanced and applied,” observed Paufique. “Silab is very good at applied research, but you need both and that is why we collaborate.”
For example, in its home market, the company has teamed up with INSERM, the French Institute of Health and Medical Research. Outside France, Silab recently began collaborating with dermatologist Peter Elias of the University of California, San Francisco.
Throughout its history, Silab has patented more than 200 products and studied more than 900 raw materials, all in an effort to uncover active materials that truly benefit cosmetic formulations.
“It could take four years to move from concept to finished product,” noted Paufique. “The science is what drives us. Merely having a nice story about a nice plant won’t hold up over that four year span.”
Philanthropic Efforts
That drive can be found in its employees and its chairman.
“Innovation is what keeps me motivated every day,” explained Paufique, who continues to come to work every day. “I always have new ideas and new projects.”
One of those projects that is close to his heart is The Silab Jean Paufique Foundation, which supports fundamental and applied research dedicated to the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of skin pathologies, especially skin cancer. Paufique’s philanthropic efforts have been widely recognized, but he is most proud of receiving the Croix de Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur—the highest decoration in France—from President François Hollande in 2013.
Very impressive, especially when one considers that Paufique founded Silab when most people are contemplating retirement.
“I am happy to come to work every day and work with the Silab team,” explained Paufique. “That’s what keeps me young!”
With a full pipeline of projects and anti-aging ingredients, Silab is well positioned to keep consumers around the world looking young, too.•