Jan 28 2009
For the eighth time global specialty chemicals supplier Cognis has given its Innovation Award to employees who developed exceptionally successful and creative products. This internal award recognizes innovative products and concepts which are environmentally sound and have succeeded in the marketplace.
This year, the Gold Award went to a South American team from the Strategic Business Unit (SBU) Functional Products, for an Agnique Blend, an adjuvant component based on renewable raw materials for the agricultural market. The Silver Award was won by a Care Chemicals team consisting of employees from France and Germany. Their innovation took the form of a new polymeric emulsifier range for high sensorial precision, called Cosmedia SP and Cosmedia SPL. Finally, the Bronze Award was given to a joint Care Chemicals and Laboratoires Sérobiologiques team from France for Dermican, a pure tetrapeptide to combat skin-aging.
“Market-driven innovations reflect the key values of our company,” says Antonio Trius, CEO of Cognis. “For Cognis, innovations are not just another growth driver, but a crucial part of our corporate strategy. We see ourselves as a generator of new ideas – and this means keeping up with all the latest market trends, consumer requirements, and changes in social attitudes and regulatory frameworks. By giving public recognition to creativity and original thinking, we hope to inspire and encourage all of our employees. This year’s entries set a new benchmark for the Innovation Award and their variety and quality show that our innovation strategy is the right one.”
The Cognis Innovation Award was first presented in 2001, and recognizes the achievements of Cognis employees who have developed innovative solutions for new products, processes, marketing approaches or other improvements. 13 interdisciplinary, and in some cases international, teams took part in this year’s competition. Their entries were judged by a panel of experts and members of Cognis’ management board. The criteria for their decision included market success, potential competitive benefits for Cognis’ customers, degree of innovation and compatibility with the company’s sustainability strategy. In 2008, the award was given to three teams. Among the winners were Cognis’ employees from France, Brazil, Argentina and Germany.
Gold Award: Agnique Blend – a natural-based adjuvant for agricultural applications
The global agrochemical market is very buoyant. Especially in South America, fungicide sales are growing rapidly. Anticipating this trend, Cognis’ Functional Products Strategic Business Unit developed an Agnique Blend for use in pesticide sprays. The new product compares favorably with other adjuvant components in terms of performance, increasing fungicide biological efficacy at the field. It also provides a higher emulsion quality and improves handling as well as the supply chain and environmental profile.
To a large extend the Agnique Blend is based on renewable raw materials, and it minimizes the environmental burden by reducing the adjuvant field dosage significantly. At the same time, the efficacy remains at the same level. The reduced dosage also means less packaging, waste, transportation and energy consumption – all factors that help make the Agnique Blend environmentally sound. With this Agnique Blend, Cognis offers a highly competitive product that contains a unique combination of formulated surfactants for use in adjuvant formulations for fungicides. The performance benefits offered by this adjuvant component ensured it was a commercial success right from the start, while being consistent with Cognis’ strategy of serving the global sustainability trend.
Silver Award: Cosmedia SP and SPL – the new polymeric emulsifier range
In recent years, there has been a shift in skin care products away from traditional emulsions towards gel cream formulations because the former had several disadvantages. Cognis Care Chemicals’ Cosmedia team developed a range of polymers designed to overcome the downsides of traditional polymers: Cosmedia SP and Cosmedia SPL.
They give formulators precise sensorial control, enabling them to achieve light textures, good spreadability, a fresh, pleasant skin feel and good tolerability, and they allow products to be marketed as “emulsifier-free”. Cosmedia SP and Cosmedia SPL products are now found in such innovative products as eye contour creams and slimming body care formulations, from both global brands and niche manufacturers, and ranging from the mass market to the premium segment. They reduce the time to market for new products, as they make solving formulation problems much easier. Moreover, they are not only cold-processable, but are also effective in very low concentrations – and as such they are highly cost-effective.
Bronze Award: Dermican – Laboratoires Sérobiologiques’ expert peptide for high-tech anti-aging solutions
The market for skin care active ingredients is growing rapidly, driven mainly by people’s desire to minimize or prevent the signs of aging. Based on in-depth research and results from an exploratory study, LS has designed Dermican, a synthetic tetrapeptide with a unique anti-aging action that targets the metabolism of a specific proteoglycan – lumican – to enhance skin firmness.
Several in vitro tests have demonstrated Dermican’s capacity to boost the synthesis of lumican and collagen I, and a clinical study has also confirmed its efficacy in making the skin firmer and plumper after a four-month course of treatment. It gets as close as currently possible to recreating the physiology of younger skin, making users both look and feel more youthful. Given today’s cosmeceutical trends, with everyone looking for ever-more efficient actives with proven mechanisms of action, Dermican offers the perfect solution – and is already being used by several major skin care manufacturers.