NYSCC Suppliers’ Day 2026 live: Biocogent showcases breakthrough wrinkle targeting RNA ingredient
20 May 2026 | Biocogent
Paul Lawrence, executive director, bioscience research, discovery, and scientific communication at Biocogent, tells us about RNActivate W at Suppliers’ Day. He discusses the breakthrough behind its innovative delivery system. Find out how the RNA-based skin care ingredient tackles “wrinkle miRNA,” delivering measurable improvements in firmness, elasticity, and wrinkles. Lawrence also shares insights on the future of RNA technologies in beauty and biotech.
This is Sabina Waldeck for Personal Care Insights at New York Suppliers Day, joined by Paul Lawrence, executive Director of Bioscience Research, Discovery and scientific communication at Biocogen.
Welcome.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
So what are you showcasing here today?
So we have a whole array of different bioactive ingredients that we have designed, developed, and launched that we are featuring here today.
But the big one that we launched at In Cosmetics in Paris this year is our RNA Activate W, which is in many ways a paradigm shift for this industry as far as active ingredients go.
I'm very excited to talk about it.
It's And a blue sky project that I've nursed to fruition over the past 9 years.
And so that ingredient that you just mentioned, RNA Activate W, is described, as I said, as a paradigm shift in skincare.
What makes RNA-based technology fundamentally different from traditional anti-aging actives?
So that is actually a great question.
I'm calling it a paradigm shift because If you were to distill down almost every active ingredient that's ever been developed for the cosmetic hair industry, it's us coming up with some kind of material that is going to prevent or repair damage to the skin cells.
And as this product became launched, I coined the phrase, trust yourselves.
In this case, we are trusting that our skin cells know how to heal.
Heal themselves better than we do.
And so the product, why it's a paradigm shift is the active ingredient itself is not what is repairing the skin cells.
The active ingredient is basically an RNA-based text message to remind our skin cells that they're more capable than we are and to please effect these repairs.
And that's why it's a paradigm shift in many ways.
And then one of the biggest challenges with RNA skincare has been delivery into the skin.
Yes, so how did biocogent overcome that hurdle with the ingredients?
I believe that our delivery vehicle that we use to get these microRNA-based constructs into the skin is what differentiates us from every other company.
If you are able to have one on one conversations with people from different companies.
This industry, a lot of different groups have been working on this.
They've been trying to use this technology in a more interventionist route, and the stumbling block for everybody has been how do we get it into the skin?
Skin is pretty hostile to RNA.
For one, they electrostatically repel each other.
There are a ton of nucleases on the skin that will chop these RNA molecules to pieces, and also just sheer penetration.
And even though they're microRNA based, they're still a little large to get in.
So to counter this, we had to come up with some delivery vehicle, and I scanned the literature, looked at all the different ways people have been trying to, you know, surmount this hurdle, and basically I took 3 of the most promising methods and basically combined them into one.
And this delivery vehicle, to our surprise, it worked very as a transfection reagent when we're dealing with monolayers of skin cells.
As we elevated the testing to three dimensional models of the skin, it worked full thickness, skin explants, and then in clinical studies, the results are just dazzling.
So by combining those approaches into a proprietary delivery vehicle.
That I can't talk too much about it because I'm sure there's a laser being pointed at me from one of the lawyers.
But basically combining three fundamental strategies to try to circu , to surmount this hurdle that's been plaguing the industry, I think it worked.
I think it worked really.
So, yeah, I could give you the basics.
Basically enhanced exfoliation.
Ultra deformable liposome technology and cell penetrating peptides, you put that all together, you have a winning formula.
And the ingredient also targets what you call wrinkle MRNA.
Can you explain what that means in simple terms and why it matters for skin aging?
So that's another really, really good question.
So to date, there have been approximately nearly 5000 microRNAs that have been found encoded in the human genome.
And what microRNAs do is they basically shut down certain gene pathways.
They toggle down the expression.
And each one has its own unique set of gene pathways that it's switching off.
So certain gene products, which are the proteins that get synthesized from genes in our genome, are being diminished, and the wrinkle microRNA, there's actually a couple of them that.
Would qualify for that moniker, but the one that we looked at is turning off the gene pathways for type 1 collagen, elastin, and for Berlin, you know, three key fibers that make up the extracellular matrix that make up very resilient, youthful skin, and as we get older, they slowly shut down.
So it's almost like our epigenetics are working against us, and in this case we found an intervention where we are able to use these RNA-based text messages to say, hey, hold off on that and allow the skin cells to begin to once again stimulate production of type 1 collagen, elastin, and febrillin.
And then the clinical data showed improvements in firmness, elasticity, and wrinkle appearance.
Which results surprised your team the most during the development?
So I had a lot of faith that this was going to work.
I did not know it was going to work as as it did.
So, true story, the clinical results came in on my birthday this past year, and I had taken the day off and, my marketing director, called me on, in the morning that day and said, Hey, would you like to come into work?
And I'm like, No, no, I really don't want to.
And she's like, you know, I think you really do want to come in and see these results.
And I think one of the most striking features, yes, the instrumental data that you just described was phenomenal, but the high resolution images are what floored me.
So this was a double-blinded study, placebo controlled.
Every person that was enrolled in the active ingredient part of the trial saw improvement over time, and everyone as a prerequisite for them to be enrolled.
In the study had to have visible wrinkles.
And one of the first before and after images we looked at baseline, and after 4 weeks of twice daily use, this individual had so many forehead lines, so many.
I felt very bad for them.
After just 4 weeks of use, they only had 2 lines left, and then by 12 weeks, almost all gone.
There was another individual that had under eye lines and crow's feet, crow's feet that spiraled around, almost looked like a seashell under their eye, almost all removed and restored.
So this was reversing wrinkles, and what we believe is happening is we We know from the ultrasound data that there was a boost in skin thickness, and when the extracellular matrix atrophies, we know the upper layers collapse in wrinkles form.
We think that by restoring these fibers being synthesized, we're thickening the extracellular matrix and we're pushing those wrinkles back out.
Yeah, amazing, and RNA technologies are becoming a bigger conversation in beauty and biotech.
Where do you see this category heading in the next few years?
So that is, that is the perfect question to cap it, honestly.
I think it's almost boundless at this point.
Like I said, to date, and this is just to date, they have identified approximately 5000 different microRNAs encoded in the human genome.
A lot of them do things that are important for skin health, so.
What we're looking at is just one wrinkle microRNA out of a couple of different microRNAs that would qualify as that, but there's other angles skin moisturization, skin brightening, barrier repair.
There's a lot of things that could be addressed through microRNA-based technology that I think we're just scratching the surface.
The RNA.
Activate W.
We plan for this to be an RNA activate line.
There are going to be other letters added at the end of that and probably next year, hopefully if you're still interested, we'll be talking about yet another launch.
So I'm very excited about this technology and I think it's almost boundless in the future.
And again, such a novel way of addressing skin health.
