Bota Bio, a global biotechnology company, established a wholly-owned subsidiary Yucca Elements (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd on July 18, 2022. Based on the advantages of Bota Bio’s technology platform, Yucca Elements focuses on the innovation of bio-based functional ingredients, aiming to continuously transform cutting-edge scientific discoveries into beauty and personal care ingredients that meet the needs of the current and future markets.
The global consumer market of beauty and personal care reached 500 billion US dollars in 2021. Consumers are paying more and more attention to the efficacy of beauty and personal care products, as well as to environmental protection and social responsibility. Therefore, the personal care industry urgently needs more efficacious, more environment-friendly and safer solutions.
Following the core concept of “1000 to 1, evidence-based development of functional ingredients”, Yucca Elements introduces the concept of pharmaceutical research and development into the development of personal care ingredients. Through the development of ingredients with the combined efforts of artificial intelligence and the world’s first-class scientists, we have identified areas to target and the lead compounds that act on these targets. These can be biosynthesized proteins, or natural products from plants and marine organisms, or compounds designed and synthesized by computer simulation based on the spatial structure of the target. A large number of new compounds are designed based on lead compounds, and further design improvements are being made through the conformational analysis of other new compounds to obtain highly active and safe compounds.
This is the “1000+” path exploration of Yucca Elements. Almost parallel in time with the first step, the in vitro and clinical efficacy of each candidate are verified, and the stability, safety and formulation compatibility are evaluated. The new ingredients that have passed all of our tests are finally marketed as active ingredients with high efficacy, giving birth to the “Final 1” of Yucca Elements.
The biomanufacturing platform of Bota Bio provides strong support for the production process development and rapid launch of Yucca Elements’ bio-based personal care products. Through a highly integrated self-developed software system, combined with state-of-the-art automation equipment, Bota Bio has built a high-throughput wet and dry experimental platform (Bota Freeway) to conduct systematic and engineered editing of various industrial strains, and to develop efficient, green and low-cost industrial biotechnologies for large-scale production. Chemical synthesis has long been the primary production method for personal care ingredients. While with the support of Bota Bio’s technology platform and industrial production capacity, Yucca Elements uses green and clean biomanufacturing for production instead of a petroleum-based process that is high energy consumption and polluting, and this green process is therefore in line with the current trend of sustainable development.
We also jointly develop innovative ingredients with industry benchmarking enterprises and research institutes with leading technologies. The team established by Yucca Elements is also one of our core competitive edges, consisting of molecular biology experts, chemical experts, formulation experts, industry veterans, and so on, all from internationally renowned ingredient suppliers or top fast moving consumer goods companies, covering the whole closed-loop industrial chain from early product development to mid-term product verification, application formula optimization to later commercial promotion and sales.
Regarding the specific product line planning, Dr. Shao Qimiao, Business Development Director of Yucca Elements, who once worked in the Personal Care BCS Department of BASF Asia Pacific, has said: “A variety of products are currently under research and development. According to the plan, we will successively launch a series of high-efficacy and high-value bio-based personal care ingredients in 2023. We hope that Yucca Elements can become an important engine and force for the sustainable development of personal care industry.”
Finally, we look forward to launching our products as soon as possible, and expect our products to complete the entire journey from the lab to the global shelf.