In-cosmetics Global 2024: Ashland SVP on beauty innovation, tech and market megatrends
07 May 2024 | Ashland
Explore Ashland’s platform technologies and plant-based innovations with SVP James Minicucci as he delves into their role in “shaping markets and applications,” from Antaron Soja Glyceride to Softhance Mr Conditioning Polymer and Gantrez Soja Delivery System. Discover how Ashland addresses customer challenges amid evolving megatrends, consumer demands and global regulations.
Hello, I'm Benya Patel, senior journalist at Personal Care Insights, and I'm speaking with Ashland.
Can you please introduce yourself?
Good morning.
It's great to be here with you.
I'm Jim Minicucci.
I lead our personal care business.
Nice to meet you.
So I have some questions prepared for you today, and first, I would like to ask you, can you tell me a little bit about Ashland's new platform technologies and how they are helping customers grow and shape new markets and trends and applications?
So I started my career in.
Personal care and I spent quite a bit of it in the semiconductor industry before coming back and the semiconductor industry there we operate at the forefront leading edge of technology and coming to Ashland, I have to say we have an extremely technology rich portfolio.
I've been so impressed and excited with the new.
Technology platforms that we recently launched in September of last year.
So I'll quickly maybe just take you a walk around the different technology platforms that we have.
Our transform vegetable oil.
This technology platform is taking oil, vegetable oil, different types of vegetable oil, and we're modifying it.
In such a way that we're going into different applications we're going to personal care, we're going into pharma, we're going into architectural coatings and paints, and this is a common theme that you'll hear as we talk about all of our platforms because at the core.
We are a specialty additives and ingredients company.
And so what that means is the products that we sell, they're not used in high volume, they're small volume in use, but the value they bring is really significant.
And so for us to support our customers, for us to scale, we have to take these different technologies and go into multiple market segments and the transform vegetable oil is one example where we're going into personal care with it.
As a delivery system, as a moisturizer, as a film former, and then we're taking the same technology, modifying it, and we're going into a, into seed coatings, and we're going into architectural paints as a dispersant in paints.
And so that's that's the theme.
We're taking these platforms, and we're going into multiple different segments.
That's our transformed vegetable oil.
Our other platform is our novel cellulosis.
We are a leader in rheology, and we're taking that leadership position in rheology and continuing to build on it by introducing more natural products within our novel cellulosis, both cellulosic-based and guar-based.
Our third platform is our super wetting agent.
These are specialty surfactants.
A lot of the surfactants on the market today are synthetic, and we've now introduced a wedding agent, a specialty surfactant that is biodegradable, having the same performance and enhanced sustainability profile.
One of our other platforms is our liquid cellulose.
Normally cellulose, when used as a rheology modifier, is in powder form.
We've now taken our portfolio.
Putting multiple different materials together and delivering it in a liquid form.
So it's not only rheology, but it's rheology plus, and we put the plus because we're bringing additional performance features, our bioabsorbable platform.
Injectables is a big growth area for us.
We're a leader in oral solid dose for recipients, and we're growing very quickly in our injectables business.
Very excited with our pipeline.
Our pipeline is growing, both number of projects and value.
And our bioabsorbable polymers is another platform that we're growing in this space.
So here it's a drug delivery technology.
You can take an active ingredient, you put it into our polymer, you inject that into the body, and then over time that polymer is degrading and releasing the active ingredient, delivering the drug.
Two other platforms is our multi-functional starch.
When you look at suspending agents, many of the products used right now are synthetic, and natural-based products are not, have not achieved the same level of performance as synthetics.
We've developed a multi-functional starch platform.
That has the same suspending performance as synthetics at room temperature and even at elevated temperature at 45 °C.
And then our last platform is our pH neutralizer.
So here we're able to tune exactly how you're moving up and down.
As you're adjusting your pH, you can tune in for both the efficiency and the VLC, which is a big issue with some of the commercially available buffers and PH neutralizezers in the market today.
So that's, you know, in summary, the new platforms that we're developing, the key theme is tunable and scalable.
Each of these platforms, we can tune them.
For each of the market segments that we're going into and even specific customer needs and formulations in those market segments.
They are tunable and then they're scalable because we're selling across multiple segments.
Thank you for the overview of the platforms.
I now want to touch upon some innovations.
So regarding the transformed vegetable oils platform you mentioned, please introduce your new Antaron soja glyceride soft enhance Mr.
Conditioning Polymer and Gantress Soja delivery system innovations and maybe some inspiration behind them.
So these are not just, as mentioned, these are not just technologies, they're not just ideas.
We've commercialized and launched products in 4 of our new technology platforms and as you mentioned, our Transform vegetable oil is one platform where we've already launched 3 products within the personal care space and you know, really honing in and deep diving this, I think.
Highlights the, again, tunability of these platforms.
So if you start with Antron Solja.
This was our first launch.
Antron Soja is a hydrophobically modified transformed vegetable oil.
So what that means is it doesn't like water.
It's water resistant and it doesn't dissolve in water.
And this is great within sunscreens.
So Antron so, it's water resistant.
It's biodegradable.
It's made from natural and renewable raw materials, vegetable oil, salt, soybean oil, and it's a great dispersant.
If you think about sunscreens, a lot of sunscreens right now are going to zinc oxide at high loading.
And our Antron soja is awesome at dispersing zinc in the formulation.
I really encourage you.
We have a, a test booth here to try it out.
It's really, really cool.
So that's Antron soja.
It doesn't dissolve in water, it's water resistant for sunscreen.
We then developed soft tans MR, which is in between water resistant and water soluble.
So this gets to the tunability part.
And soft pants is specifically for rinse-off application.
It has great moisturizing performance.
It's really after you use it, your skin feels extremely, extremely soft and, and really moisturized.
Our third launch is then Ganttras soy.
This is for oral care.
And this is readily dissolvable in water.
So you can see we took something that doesn't dissolve at all, water resistant, all the way to fully dissolves 100% dissolution in water, and the Gross soya platform is specifically for oral care has a delivery system.
So you can deliver this in your toothpaste and it can deliver different actives, antimicrobials, flavors, whitening performance.
It stays in the mouth and then it delivers over time throughout the course of the day.
OK, and moving on to some trend, trend topics, how are mega trends, consumer demands, and maybe regulations impacting your customers' challenges?
And your passion to solve the greatest challenges while also responsibly shaping and growing your portfolio.
So I think here there's multiple challenges when you look at our customers in oral care, in home care here, we just want to get into Many homes as possible we want to make sure everybody is rushing at least twice a day and everybody has access to all of the different personal care and home care products and so for us it's helping our customers in that journey to really reach a much broader market.
Sustainability is obviously a big part of what we're working on and what our customers are working on.
How do we make products that we're putting on ourselves, products that we're using to wash our clothes, our dishes, more sustainable, more natural.
And when we look at our technology platforms, that is moving us in that.
Direction and helping our customers achieve their sustainability goals.
Again, our transformed vegetable oil, it comes from natural raw materials.
It's nature derived.
All of our platforms are nature derived, biodegradable.
Many of them are non-GMO and vegan as required.
And then it's also how we're operating.
These technology platforms, they don't use catalysts.
We have a 100% yield, no waste, and we're able to use existing assets to manufacture many of these products.
And so when we're talking to our customers, it's not only about the product itself and where we're sourcing the material from and what's the biodegradability profile, but it's also how are we making it, what is the.
CO2 footprint of that material with our new technology platforms between the raw materials that we're using and how we've developed the synthesis of it where it's extremely efficient again with no catalyst, no solvent, no waste, 100% conversion in existing assets, we're being really, really efficient.
So we're that's something that we're super committed to at Ashland.
We're very excited that we got our science-based targets recently approved.
And we're lockstep with our customers and supporting them on their sustainability journey and making sure that we reach the entire population.
OK, thank you so much for your time today, June.
