An integral part of the company’s global innovation network, the Center is designed to deepen collaboration and advance market-relevant innovations, accelerating speed to market for its customers in South East Asia (SEA) and beyond.
The enhanced labs add new capabilities for synthesis, analytical and physical sciences to existing application, formulation and technical testing facilities to better support advanced specialty solutions across industries, including energy storage, coatings, electronics, packaging, life sciences, and healthcare.
“By expanding our capabilities in Singapore, it is a commitment not just to the local market, but to SEA as well. The speed-to-market innovation is crucial, and the fact that the needs and gaps are different in each region, it’s really about listening to what our customers and partners need to serve consumers,” Kwe Sung Tjo, senior business manager for Beauty & Home (SEA, ANZ) and Pharma & Nutra (APAC) at Lubrizol, told NutraIngredients.
“It’s definitely an advantage to have much faster innovation, especially hyper-localized insights and solutions that Lubrizol would bring through these expanded capabilities.”
In the area of nutrition, he said that “many exciting products backed by science” to improve benefits for consumers are on the drawing board. While the exact pipeline is confidential at the moment, all new products are developed to address market needs.
“If you were to draw an analogy from the beauty side of the business, historically we have been launching one or two new products a year. For the nutra side, I can’t see how it’s going to be different.”
Beyond in-house resources, Lubrizol is pulling various levers for research. These include open innovation and working closely with external partners, such as tertiary education institutions and research institutes.
At the launch event in Singapore last month, Lubrizol and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for collaborations marked for the enhanced labs.
“We adopt a multi-pronged approach, and it’s only through this that will really help us speed up innovation,” Kwe added.
Beauty-from-within, metabolic health opportunities
One of Lubrizol’s key products for the beauty-from-within category is Curcushine, a microencapsulated form of curcumin that targets reactive oxygen species (ROS) and eliminates the effect of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) in the body.
It has been clinically proven to reduce wrinkles, fine lines, and dark spots while improving skin luminosity.
Additionally, its patented microencapsulation technology increases dispersibility and bioavailability, which is designed to increase absorption efficacy.
Recognizing opportunities for the inner beauty category in Asia, Kwe said Lubrizol would continue generating clinical data to capitalize on this market trend.
Additionally, the company has commissioned market research to understand women’s needs throughout life stages.
Involving consumers from South Korea, China, and Indonesia, the research findings indicated that beauty is deeply intertwined with health and overall well-being.
“For each of these different stages of a woman’s life, be it beauty care needs or nutritional needs, Lubrizol endeavors to offer a holistic solution,” he emphasized.
With metabolic health, particularly GLP-1, a trending topic in recent years, Kwe added that the company is also looking into the area of weight management.
“Gut health would be another [focus area]. For instance, scientific data has demonstrated a direct relationship between gut health and mental alertness. Moving forward, there will definitely be a lot more offerings that Lubrizol will bring.”
