The new technical centre is located in the same premises than the Group’s US subsidiary, which was created 35 years ago, it brings together pharmaceutical and personal care application laboratories in a 5,300 ft2 (492 m2) space. The new facility will be officially inaugurated on April 26th, 2017.
“I am convinced that these state-of-the-art laboratories will contribute to accompanying our customers more closely in their projects and to expanding our business in America. My priorities are clearly linked to establishing the future of Gattefossé through its geographical expansion, our efforts in R&D and the development of additional strategic alliances,” said Jacques Moyrand, Gattefossé Group Chairman.
Adapting skin care and sun care formulas
Gattefossé’s Technical Center of Excellence has been organized around four areas:
– A main central open space for formulation featuring five benches equipped with hot plates, homogenizers, blenders, dispersers, water baths, rheometer, stereoscope and cross polarized light microscope.
– A processing room with planetary mixers, 3 kg pilot reactor for emulsions, co-mill, vertically integrated hot melt extruder.
– An analytical room equipped with differential scanning calorimetry, pH-stat, laser diffraction particle sizer, ultra-high pressure liquid chromatograph, dissolution bath coupled with autosampler for liquid chromatography vials and direct UV reading.
– A stability room featuring 25°C/60% relative humidity and 40°C/75% relative humidity stability chambers.
The range of equipment will be gradually expanded to encompass additional formulation techniques such as tableting, capsule filling, lipstick moulding and others.
The new technical team will offer an interface with both pharmaceutical and personal care customers throughout North America by providing formulation troubleshooting, inspiration and technical support. As far as personal care products are concerned, the laboratory will develop specific formulas to meet local needs and trends. Gattefossé will continue to build its expertise in sensory evaluation, offer formulation support, train customers, and provide hand-on seminars. The initial works will be focused on skin care and sun care, to be followed by make-up and hair care.
“We want our customers to better understand our ingredients and their behaviour in final formulations. This new Technical Center of Excellence will allow us to demonstrate the benefits of using our ingredients and will provide the resources necessary to organize educational trainings”, said Ben Blinder, Senior Director, Personal Care Division.
Gattefossé USA was the Group’s first affiliate created overseas 35 years ago. Since this initial foray, Gattefossé has posted continuous growth in North America, expanding its presence all over the US territory and to Canada and Mexico with corporate offices in Paramus, NJ, Toronto, ON and Montreal, QC. Local service is also provided by long-term partners in the US Midwest and West Coast, as well as Mexico.
Gattefossé operates three other technical centres around the world: in France, in China and in India.
