L'Oreal and Vichy in Patent Infringement Crisis of Hyaluronic Acid
- Chaileedo Press
- May 19, 2022
- 4 min read
Vichy and its parent company L'Oréal are sued by the pharmaceutical company for using its hyaluronic acid and polymer matrix compositions in six cosmetic products. As hyaluronic acid is more popular across the world, the world's largest hyaluronic acid production and sales company in China Bloomage Biotech also gained great benefit from this raw material.
Vichy Laboratories and its beauty owner L'Oréal are being sued by pharmaceutical company GlycoBioSciences for patent infringement.
The Canadian group accused the two beauty companies of using its hyaluronic acid and polymer matrix compositions in six cosmetic products.
Documents obtained by Cosmetics Business, filed through the US District Court of Columbia, said that L'Oréal and Vichy had refused to halt production, which triggered the lawsuit.
The products in question include L'Oréal’s Revitalift 1.5% Pure Hyaluronic Acid, 1.5% HA Revitalift and Revitalift Filler 1.5% Hyaluronic Acid and Vichy's Liftactiv Supreme HA Wrinkle Filler 1.5% Hyaluronic Acid Serum + Vitamin C, Liftactiv Ha Wrinkle Filler and its Liftactiv Supreme Night 1.5ml Firming Anti-Ageing Cream.
All of the products are sold in the US, including the judicial district.
“Upon investigation, testing, information and belief, the above products contain high concentrations of hyaluronic acid in a polymer matrix, which includes a non-ionic polymer and are formulations that have all of the elements of one or more of the claims of the Glyco Patents and/or have formulae that are equivalent to the claimed formulas,” court documents read.
Glyco said that it has suffered lost profits due to L'Oréal and Vichy's use of its patented complexes.
The ultimate goal of the court proceedings is to ban L'Oréal and Vichy from using its patented ingredients. Glyco is also seeking damages from the companies.
In the official Tmall L'Oreal hairdressing flagship store, there are 6 shampoo products related to hyaluronic acid for sale, with the highest sales volume being L'Oreal Hyaluronic Acid Hydrating Shampoo, with total sales volume of 60,000+ and a price of $8.7. In Tmall Vichy's official flagship store, there is no hyaluronic acid shampoo on sale, the highest selling shampoo products for Vichy Dercos, sales of 100,000 +, priced at $8.7.
Hyaluronic acid, a hot ingredient in the cosmetics industry in the last two years, is being sought after by more and more consumers, which provided various beauty brands and companies to see business opportunities.
Hyaluronic acid, which is a natural straight chain polysaccharide present in human and animal tissues, has strong water shrinkage, a molecule of hyaluronic acid can absorb 1000 times its weight in water. It is the human body from the origin of the substance, widely distributed in various parts of the body, has good biocompatibility, can be degraded in the body. Hyaluronic acid was first discovered in 1934 by Meyer, an ophthalmologist in the United States, who first extracted this polysaccharide from the vitreous humor of a bull's eye and named it hyaluronic acid. In the decades that followed, hyaluronic acid was made only by animal extraction, and the amount extracted was particularly low.
It was until the 1980s that a biochemical pharmacologist in China extracted hyaluronic acid for the first time from chicken crowns and human umbilical cords, and only then did China really acquire this technology. After continuous deep cultivation. In the 1990s, the domestic market promoted and spread this raw material.
Later within 10 years, hyaluronic acid finally broke through the technology and was able to be made by plant extraction as well as microbial fermentation. This technological breakthrough made the cost of this raw material reduced by more than 10 times, and the hyaluronic acid industry achieved a reverse flip. Since then, most of the hyaluronic acid raw materials come from the Chinese market.
After that, hyaluronic acid has developed strongly in China and with the help of hyaluronic acid, the world's largest hyaluronic acid production and sales company, Bloomage Biotech, was born. In the 2021 financial report of Bloomage Biotech, the revenue of Bloomage Biotech 2021 was $734 million, an increase of 87.93% year-on-year; the net profit attributable to owners of the parent company was $116 million, an increase of 21.13% year-on-year. The net profit attributable to owners of the parent company after non-recurring gains and losses was $98 million, an increase of 16.74% year-on-year. It is noteworthy that this is also the largest increase in the performance of Bloomage Biotech since its listing in 2019.
In this regard, Bloomage Biotech said that the company has been steadily promoting the "four-wheel drive" business: the raw material business and medical terminal business are growing steadily, the functional skin care products business continues to maintain high growth, and the functional food business has gotten a good start.
At the beginning of 2022, Bloomage Biotech formally launched its high-end personal care brand Sensewoods, which mainly promotes hyaluronic acid shampoo. Since January when Sensewoods’ store was launched, the hyaluronic acid volumizing shampoo priced at $38.4 has been paid by over 300 people. Another shampoo from the brand "Ruyi", claiming to use Bloomage Biotech hyaluronic acid, has more than 40,000 orders. The shampoo claims to "reshape the scalp micro-ecology", and the shampoo claims that the "micro-glass" technology is "the first time the unique biotechnology ingredients of Bloomage Biotech micro-meso and patented cationic hyaluronic acid applied to hair care products."
Comments