The goal of SUDOCHIP project is to industrialise and prepare the commercialisation of a new patent-protected microfluidic instrument called SOD4, and a new method of antiperspirant efficacy evaluation. The product will disrupt an existing market and create a new market (R&D and test of raw ingredients) displacing current technology (gravimetry). For Microfactory, it will open new global business opportunities with major international cosmetics groups, SMEs and suppliers of raw cosmetics ingredients. It will enable to generate an ambitious turnover of €36 million in 2023, and to create 87 new European jobs to drive development, marketing and sales efforts.
The innovative polymer technology is a microfluidic instrument mimicking in vivo the action of the antiperspirants underneath the skin. It is an advanced process based on advanced microfluidic materials. The expected project’s outcome will be a validated and industrialised SOD4 instrument, allowing to screen, at an unprecedented speed, and affordable cost, large numbers of new cosmetic formulations to select the best – a task impossible to achieve today (see L’Oréal testimonial above). Our ambition is to become a European and world-wide gold standard, FDA approved, for mandatory efficacy evaluation of anti-perspirants, and, beyond, a whole range of cosmetic products, in a highly growing multi-billions field. Our innovative process will considerably accelerate and facilitate the design of new antiperspirants with more natural ingredients and exempt of carcinogenic components, that otherwise could take many years to design with the current techniques. It represents the latest development trends and strongly reflect expressed consumers and market needs.
Today, the techniques of evaluation of antiperspirants are slow, expensive and unreliable. With the “gold standard technique” - gravimetry -, cohorts of 40 persons are recruited (Fig 1). They follow a rigorous protocol of armpits cleaning for three weeks. Afterwards, they are brought in thermo-regulated labs and their sweat productions are weighted for calculation of the quantity of the secreted sweat and its reduction by antiperspirants. This technique, which has not evolved for twenty years, is time-consuming (a month), expensive (up to 10K€), and unreliable (+/- 40%). In addition, it requires a minimum of collected sweat for adequate quantification and precise technical equipment and trained personnel are mandatory . These drawbacks considerably slow down the design and creation of new formulations.
Today, because almost all the products sold on the market include carcinogenic components, such as aluminium salts , it is urgent to use better techniques of evaluation of the antiperspirants, to reduce health risks. The European Community, alarmed by the risks, urges cosmetic companies to decrease to 0.6% the aluminium concentrations in their formulations (12%-15% today) and actively search for new natural solutions.
Microfactory has invented a microfluidic device and test using natural or artificial sweat that perfectly mimics the in vivo sweating process of the skin to assess the antiperspirants efficacy (without people), one hundred time faster (few minutes), cheaper than other techniques, and highly reproducible (± 10% instead of ±40%)
