L’Oréal ventures into skin longevity biotech with Timeline investment

17 Jan 2024 --- L’Oréal acquires a minority stake in Timeline, a Swiss biotechnology firm dedicated to innovative solutions for longevity in the beauty, food and health sectors. 

The French beauty and cosmetics giant advances into longevity biotechnology through its venture capital fund, BOLD (Business Opportunities for L’Oréal Development).

L’Oréal says this move aligns with its decade-long commitment to understand and enhance beauty through research.

Founded in 2007 as a spin-off of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Timeline specializes in longevity research. Its parent company, Amazentis, is a life science company that applies “breakthrough research and clinical science”.

Targeting cell structures
Timeline claims its exclusive compound, Mitopure, can revitalize aging mitochondria. Mitopure is a postbiotic that “unlocks a precise dose of the rare Urolithin A molecule and promotes healthy aging.”

Timeline claims that Mitopure can revitalize aging mitochondria, also called the cell’s powerhouses (Image credit: L’Oréal).The product is sold as a softgel supplement and in a day cream format, which is reportedly clinically proven to boost skin hydration and reduce the appearance of wrinkles after two weeks of use.

Furthermore, L'Oréal notes that Mitopure's innovation is the result of over a decade of scientific research, which is supported by "gold standard" clinical trials and an intellectual property portfolio.

The clinical trials found that Mitopure in the day cream reduced wrinkle depth by 15% and improved skin hydration by 11%. Eighty-seven percent of users reported an increase in volume and skin texture look and feel with 100% agreeing the skin looks more “radiant, brighter and glowing with health” along with the feeling of “immediate hydration, nourishment and suppleness.”

The findings are based on a three-week user trial of 30 healthy women aged 40 to 65. Users applied the cream once in the morning.

Entering new dimension
L’Oréal says it is going beyond traditional skin care with the acquisition of Timeline.

“Longevity is about living healthier for longer, and L’Oréal has been working for more than a decade to understand and anticipate what this could mean for beauty,” says Barbara Lavernos, deputy CEO and in charge of Research, Innovation and Technology at L’Oréal Groupe. 

“Longevity adds a new dimension to beauty, focused on predicting, correcting, and even reversing the aging of our skin, scalp, and hair. Our investment in Timeline is exciting for its potential to transpose key hallmarks of longevity onto skin health and beauty.”

Multidimensional approach
Patrick Aebischer, Timeline’s co-founder and chairman, adds: “This strategic collaboration reflects the breakthrough multidimensional approach that we’ve always believed is necessary to make meaningful advancements for longevity and healthspan.”

Investing in another technology, L’Oréal collaborated with China’s Shinehigh Innovation’s “cutting-edge” supramolecular technology, a branch of science studying intermolecular bonds. 

L’Oréal describes the start-up’s “breakthrough” as a smart self-assembling technology that “enables a combination of ingredients that were previously impossible.” The company sees that giving products greater efficacy and sustainability.

Longevity on the rise
The industry is beginning to talk about longevity solutions over anti-aging.

Estée Lauder’s latest leap in skin care innovation involved its new Skin Longevity platform. The beauty giant said it is trying to redefine the anti-aging conversation with 15 years of “pioneering” research to help lead the industry into an era of visible age reversal.

Mibelle Biochemistry unveiled RejuveNAD, a “longevity molecule” for stabilizing NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), a molecule that plays a pivotal role in various cellular processes. 

NAD+ has garnered attention in the realm of anti-aging supplements. However, incorporating it into cosmetics has been a persistent challenge due to its inherent instability in formulations and difficulty penetrating skin cells.

By Venya Patel