The long-term partnership will mean that the complete range of KitoZyme biolpolymers will be available from October 2011 under the Clariant name, and marketed as ‘Vitipure’, ‘Zenvivo’ and ‘Velsan’.
Biopolymers for the personal care industry have been growing in importance in line with the fact that the technology behind them has evolved rapidly to produce effective and more cost effective solutions.
In the personal care sector biopolymers are used for a wide range of applications, but most importantly the new range to be marketed by Clariant has moisturizing and anti-ageing claims, which taps into one of the industry’s fastest growing trends.
Sensory enhancing, effective and sustainable
Marketed as being sensory enhancing, effective and sustainable, the new Clariant range is extracted from secured vegetal source based on the polysaccharide Chitosan, the long chain polymer Chitin-glucan and their derivatives.
A 2008 study carried out by KitoZyme found that a 1.5 per cent dose of chitin-glucan in a regular moisturising cream enhanced both stratum corneum hydration and skin tophography.
Underlining the fact that these extracts are by-products, the companies are able to make valid claims that the ingredient range is both sustainable and eco-friendly.
Likewise, because the production process is modular, and sequenced, this means that each product is isolated and purified before moving to the next stage of processing, ensuring ingredient purity and efficacy.
Clariant builds on position in personal care
"Clariant's decision to partner with KitoZyme is fully in line with our strategy to be the preferred partner to the personal care industry by providing sustainable innovations and superior sensoric differentiation based on formulation expertise and market insight,” said Michael Willome, Clariant’s head of Business Unit Industrial & Consumer Specialties
“This partnership helps us to become a supplier of technology ingredients with the character of differentiation, with the help of new technologies and a deeper product portfolio."
The ingredients are based on fungi that is a non-GMO by-product from both the food and biotech industries, which is sourced for purity, imcrobiological quality and traceability from selective suppliers.
Fulfilling regulation and certification requirments
The companies also claim that the range of biolpolymers complies with leading regulatory and certification bodies, including GMP - for both FDA and EMEA requirements, HACCP, and ISO9001 2008 certification.
“With countless numbers of microorganisms currently produced by the different actors of the White Biotech, biorefinery offers many excellent opportunities for product innovation,” said Hugues Bultot, CEO at KitoZyme.
“Moreover, thanks to our proprietary processes, they offer the double advantage of by-product valorization and generation of efficient ingredients in a cost-effective, highly reproducible and safe way."