Text: Future Traces FBeauty Lin Yu
The "Matthew effect" in the beauty industry, which has entered the stock era, is becoming increasingly obvious.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the total retail sales of cosmetics in China in August this year were 31.9 billion yuan, down 6.1% year-on-year. This is the third consecutive month of decline, and it has not led to a positive overall return to the broader market. In the midst of the weakness, a number of leading local listed companies still have good financial reports, with amazing double-digit growth in revenue and profit. This has also led to the overall market share of domestic products to maintain an expanding trend.
Among them, the advancement of R&D strength has become the common feature of high-growth enterprises. So, when the authenticity and effectiveness of efficacy have become market communication skills, and technology and science communication have also become the key engines to drive business growth, from the details of innovative intellectual property achievements - patents, what new research directions have been rolled out of domestic beauty products this year?
Anti-aging is the most popular, and the "gold content" of patent applications is improving
"FBeauty Future Traces" concluded that from January to August 2024, 14 local cosmetics companies published a total of 210 invention patent applications, a year-on-year decrease of 18.29% compared with 257 last year. Compared with the "cliff-like" decline in the first half of last year, the output of R&D results of local beauty companies this year has become more stable.
This stable state is not only reflected in the number of patents, but also in the gold content of patents. If last year, the R&D of local enterprises was developing towards "depth", then this year it is in this development context that they will further dig deep and do thoroughly, and tell their own stories with systematic ideas.
From the patent applications published by 12 local companies such as Shanghai Jahwa and Juzi Biotech from January to August this year, we can see the following three important changes:
1. In terms of efficacy, anti-aging and antioxidant research is the majority, and many companies have carried out research on medical beauty injections.
"FBeauty Future Traces" combed and found that in the patent applications from January to August this year, domestic products generally focused their research on the field of anti-aging and anti-oxidation, and Shanghai Jahwa, Proya, and Marubeni all had corresponding patent applications, involving fermentation technology, peptide ingredients, plant extracts and other fields.
In addition, research related to medical aesthetic injections is also a hot field. For example, Bloomage Biotech and Bethany have applied for injection patents, and the results of the former's application are mainly used for the preparation of fillers, anti-aging injections, etc., aiming to correct skin wrinkles and improve skin elasticity; The results of the latter application can be used in injectable facial filler products.
In addition to facial fillers, Giant Biotech has also applied for a patent for "recombinant collagen filler for injection without crosslinker residue and preparation method thereof", which has the characteristics of high biosafety and good fluidity, and is suitable for neck filling.
It can be seen that the high popularity of the medical beauty industry is driving beauty companies to pay attention to the development and business expansion of mechanical brand products, break the business boundary of makeup brands, and build a new growth curve.
2. The patent application focuses on the core strategic advantages and the layout is more "systematic".
For example, the brand image and product development are deeply tied to "pearls", and this year continued to deepen the research related to pearls: applied for "the application of hydrolyzed shelline shard protein and the application of products to promote the decomposition of melanosomes in keratinocytes", the patent belongs to the field of biotechnology, providing a new solution and research direction for promoting melanin metabolism.
Most of Bloomage Biotech's patents are related to ergothioneine and sodium hyaluronate; Following the addition of a self-developed new raw material cyclic peptide to the large product ruby cream 3.0 last year, Proya is also continuing to carry out research on cyclic peptides, and applied for "a neurological soothing composition containing cyclic hexapeptide and its application" in the first half of the year; Among the multiple patents applied by Shanghai Jahwa, two are for the application research of Artemisia annua extract, a characteristic raw material.
In addition, beauty companies such as Freda and Giant Bio, which are heavy on collagen, also applied for a number of collagen-related patents in the first half of the year, involving genetic engineering and protein and other technical fields. It is worth mentioning that the application exploration of collagen is also becoming more and more diversified, for example, Giant Biotech has done research on the hair-promoting effect of recombinant XVII collagen and the anti-hair loss effect of recombinant human XVII collagen.
Not only that, beauty companies will also conduct relevant supporting research around the established general direction. For example, Bethany, which focuses on the development of characteristic plant raw materials, has applied for research results on special plant extracts such as green thorn fruit, Yunnan Tibetan eucalyptus, and camellia flower, and has also applied for related patents such as plant fruit processing devices to ensure the quality of raw materials through upgrading the extraction process.
3. Compared with the past, the "gold content" of patent applications has been improved.
Previously, FBeauty Future Traces concluded in its annual science and technology report that the patent quality of Chinese companies is significantly improving and has become a benchmark in the application field. Globally, among the top 10 most cited cosmetics-related patents filed between 2021 and 2023, 8 of them are from Chinese companies/institutions, in addition to ingredient companies Jinbo and Chuangjian, as well as brand companies such as Marubeni.
"In addition to plant extracts and fermentation processes, mainland beauty companies are also building barriers in target research, permeation promotion research and new biotechnological raw materials." Jia Yan, Secretary-General of the Cosmetics Special Committee of China Daily Chemical Industry Association, commented to FBeauty that since the beginning of this year, domestic products have greatly strengthened the depth of research and development of raw materials, and new efficacy evaluation methods based on computational biology are also emerging.
On the whole, through continuous patent applications, domestic products are constantly digging deep into the moat of competition, and the results are remarkable in the short term, but there is still a lot of room for development. Mei Hexiang, the founder of Futu Medical, pointed out that theoretically, the threshold for these patent achievements is not very high, and it is necessary for local companies to further achieve real innovation.
Not innovative enough? Local beauty is still in the "squat period" of R&D
In the Patent Law of the People's Republic of China, patents can be divided into three types: invention patents, utility model patents and design patents. Among them, the invention patent has the highest gold content. "Invention patents in cosmetics generally contain new raw materials, new methods, and new combinations, which are more difficult and valuable." Zhang Taijun, R&D director of Quanzhi Beauty Skin Biotechnology Research Institute, once told FBeauty Future Traces.
In the current introduction of scientific research strength of enterprises, the total number of patents and the types of patents are generally involved, and the progress of invention patents is often highlighted. In fact, in addition to digital growth, invention patents are also high and low according to the innovation of results.
Depending on the level of difficulty, in the field of scientific research, the highest level can be called "Creation", which means to come up with an idea that no one else has ever had before, and use that idea to make a practical result; The second is "Innovation", which finds defects and deficiencies from past research results and provides some supplements and improvements; Finally, there is "Application", which refers to a large number of application-level inventions.
"At present, most of the patent research of cosmetics companies is designed from the perspective of process and formula, but it is not a basic research done from the perspective of consumer demand or dermatological mechanism, so it basically does not break out of the traditional 'problem solving' idea." Some senior scientific researchers pointed out.
From the perspective of R&D, the invention patent at the level of "Creation" must be at the forefront of the industry, achieve disruptive innovation and have pioneering significance.
In April this year, Beiersdorf held a scientific summit in Shanghai for the first time to disclose the birth process of the "strongest whitening ingredient on the surface" - isobutylaminothiazolylresorcinol (630), which has been developed for 15 years and is the result of a series of disciplines such as biochemistry, synthetic biology, and computational biology. At that time, Mei Hexiang excitedly said at the scene: "Innovation is no longer enough to describe this achievement. It's a breakthrough, a creation, a magic through science. ”
It is obvious to all that the application of AI has accelerated the process of beauty science research, allowing many previously vague concepts to be quantified, and the expression of efficacy is more accurate and the texture is more thorough. With the help of pharmaceutical CAD computer-aided design, the application of molecular biology knowledge (clear target target), computer simulation technology (modeling), and computational biology technology (calculation), these cross-industry "new tools" are making cosmetics research and development more efficient and accurate.
Today, the underlying technology of cosmetics is changing from chemistry to biology, and the application of new technologies such as cutting-edge artificial intelligence is accelerating, and cross-border itself will bring more and more disruptive innovations to the industry. Looking to the future, one of the key conditions to open the door to innovation in the cosmetics industry will be the power of multidisciplinary and interprofessional integration.
Of course, in the actual situation in the cosmetics industry, this standard is still somewhat idealistic.
On the one hand, the talent pool of related disciplines in China is small, and the overall development is still in the growth period. Taking computational biology as an example, in mainland China, Sichuan University only opened the first undergraduate major in computational biology in the form of a double degree in 2014. The Qubit Think Tank has predicted that it will take at least five years for the computational biology industry to explode commercialization, and it will be the basic precipitation period before 2025.
On the other hand, the awareness of patent protection in the industry is not strong enough, but this situation is improving with the spread of science communication.
It can be seen that the innovation of the cosmetics industry is not only limited to the industry itself, but also has a strong correlation with patent protection, public awareness and the development of external disciplines, and the industry research and development is still in a "squat period".
Long slopes and thick snow, open construction of an innovation model with Chinese characteristics
From applied invention to cutting-edge creation, Chinese enterprises still have a long way to go in the journey of bravely climbing the peak of science and moving towards the "no man's land". However, we are also pleased to find that domestic beauty products have gradually explored their own vertical fields, and have taken root downward to build a research and development model that is in line with their own development characteristics and the characteristics of the Chinese market.
Nowhere is this more evident than on the product side.
It can be seen from the upgrade of domestic beauty products in the past two years that with the in-depth development of the R&D end and the implementation of results, most products have entered the 2.0 or 3.0 stage. The advancement of the efficacy of these large single products has also led to the systematization of brand scientific research.
Not only that, at present, the input-output efficiency of some leading enterprises on the R&D side has been continuously improved, which has begun to directly drive the growth of the company's main business and help brands build differentiated competitiveness.
"In the long run, this kind of practice of building its own core and core competitiveness is very helpful to enterprises and industries." The above-mentioned senior scientific researchers said that enterprises have been deeply involved in a certain vertical field for a long time, and it is easier to produce innovative research results.
"This is the inevitable trend of market competition and the result of market segmentation." Jia Yan believes that the systematization of scientific research investment in domestic products is a relatively obvious development trend, indicating that enterprises are building a "moat" around their core technology.
But at the same time, he also pointed out that many beauty companies have not yet really established a complete R&D system, "the current patent applications focus more on raw materials, and less on other aspects of cosmetics." However, under the open innovation mechanism, leading enterprises can quickly gain a favorable position in the fierce competition ecology by integrating resources and leveraging "external brains", medical research co-creation or school-enterprise joint implementation of special research, or joining hands with raw material suppliers or independent scientific research institutes to obtain "exclusive" patent authorization.
For example, Proya has established a global R&D strategy to deeply integrate global talents, raw materials, R&D and production resources; Uniasia has built an "open" innovation platform, using China and Australia R&D centers to bring together professionals in many disciplines such as Chinese medicine and biological sciences. Shangmei has built an open innovation platform on top of the full-link independent scientific research system, integrating multi-dimensional social resources such as industry, academia, research and medicine, and collaboratively promoting innovation.
At the same time, the construction of cosmetics discipline in China is also constantly strengthened, which also provides a mechanism guarantee for the construction of localized scientific research teams. For example, from 2018 to 2023, the Ministry of Education has approved the establishment of cosmetics-related undergraduate majors such as "Cosmetics Technology Engineering" and "Fragrance and Flavor Technology and Engineering" in 24 colleges and universities. Even if high-end talents are still lacking, enterprises consciously focus on resources and consolidate low-level talents, which brings great imagination to the future development of the industry.
When the beauty market moves from savage growth to a new stage of "competitive quality", the patent achievements of Chinese beauty companies are "slowing down and improving quality", which is not only a profile of the gradual improvement and evolution of their scientific research system, but also further leads the industrial competition to rationality and long-termism.