The future of skincare technology

Cutitronics, a technology company who ‘spun-out’ of a Strathclyde University engineering project, are about to revolutionize the way we care for our skin.

Dr David Heath, CEO and founder, met with us to explain how our By Design grant helped his company on the way to commercial success.

Identifying a gap in the market

“We ‘spun-out’ of the University of Strathclyde in January 2014. We’re fairly new, but the whole proposition had a lot of crafting and work done to it before that.“

“Originally, I was working with medical devices, specialising in skin. I’d attended a skincare conference and watched lots of presentations. 

"I realised that the industry was benefiting from a mature level of sophistication in chemistry and formulation. However, the advances in engineering hadn’t really had any impact on this industry.

“While you can put products on the skin, and decades of research have gone into the chemistry that is there, there are shortfalls in the application process.”

Sensing a gap in the market, David began to think about how he could apply his technological findings to skincare. 

Applying the right technology

"Essentially, it’s a hand-held, home-use automated applicator for delivering skincare products" explains David.

“The name actually comes from ‘cutis’, which is the Latin term for the skin and ‘tronics’, because it’s an electronic engineering approach that we take. We aren’t dealing with products.”

Working with a basic, three-step procedure, the Cutitronics system measures skin health by applying the professional, scientific methodologies that are used in dermatology labs.

Based on this information, the system stimulates the skin to enable it to receive the product into the deeper layers of the skin, maximising the effectiveness of the product.

“The third step is the controlled dosage. Just as you would control the dosage of your medication, so too would you want to control the dosage of active ingredients to the skin.

"If you can get the product deeper into the skin, then you’re treating the cells underneath – and when the upper-layer cells shed off, you’re revealing the pre-treated skin. So you’re getting faster results and minimising the likelihood of adverse reactions" says David.

Transformative results

Used in conjunction with treatment products like serums, SPFs and moisturisers, the Cutitronics system provides the home consumer with a level of expertise they could only otherwise get from visiting a skincare professional on a very regular basis.

"This can help increase the use of skincare with active ingredients like retinol, which can bring out really bad reactions in people if they use it improperly. This is a challenge for skincare product manufacturers, because people are impatient and they want faster results.

"If you use too much, particularly in a product with active ingredients, you can end up with raw skin – with many customers under the mistaken belief that they’re allergic to the product.

“It’s bad for the consumer, and it’s bad for the manufacturer. Manufacturers find they can’t release higher concentrations of the most effective ingredients to the home user, because they don’t trust consumers to use the product properly.”

“If you control all of this through engineering, then the end user can get the best results from that product. 

"We’re a bit like a FitBit for skincare -  helping users track and reach their skincare goals faster and more effectively."

Creating customer confidence

This move could revolutionise the skincare industry - maximising the effectiveness of products and creating a deeper relationship between manufacturer and user. 

“By bringing the end user and the manufacturer into the same space – customers can get expert advice that they couldn’t get before because they didn’t have the measurement technology.

“And for the manufacturer, they get a greater connection with their customer. This was never possible before as they couldn’t be in the customer’s home – but our device can be.”

As a business-to-business company, Cutitronics operate a partnering model with world-leading skincare manufacturers.

David explains: "Because we’re B2B, the core technology is manufactured by us – and we ‘whitelabel’ the product. So, if we were to partner with a known brand, for example – it would be billed as our customer brand's machine. Rather than selling skincare products in tubs, they would be sold in cartridges within the device."

Crafting a proposition

Cutitronics heard about the grant through an adviser at Scottish Enterprise, as they'd been receiving other kinds of support. 

When they came to the grant application, they knew they had a lot to learn about the market they were trying to enter. 

"I was familiar with some of the development processes, but what we didn’t have was someone on the team in the beauty industry space. We knew that was a gaping hole in our knowledge" David admits.

In order to develop a proposition that would convince the industry of the importance of their product, they needed to locate someone with that insight.

"In the skincare industry, everything is so brand-centric. Looks are everything – even from a company perspective".

Through the By Design grant, they were able to connect with an adviser, Wilma McDaniel, who'd spent 20 years working within the premium skincare space - including ten years at senior levels within Estee Lauder Companies Inc. 

Bringing a deep understanding of the beauty industry, she advised on branding, helping the company to draw up a convincing proposition that communicated the benefits of their technology in terms that skincare companies would understand.

Commercial development

“Prior to the By Design grant, a lot of our progress was on product development" admits David. 

"Since the grant, the commercial development really accelerated. The level of customer engagement, identifying the right customers and getting to the key decision makers – that path has shortened considerably.

"The amount of ground that we’ve covered since the grant has been incredible. I only now realise how long it would have taken or how far we’d have to go without it. It really has been quite impactful.

"By Design helped us support the commercial development of the company, getting what is now a fantastic proposition to key decision-makers and helping us move everything to the next stage. I would absolutely recommend it. From my experience, it’s been incredibly beneficial.

A winning formula

David admits that our support has been instrumental in helping to develop the product. 

“When I first thought about applying the technology I was developing within the university to the cosmetics industry, I underwent a Royal Society of Edinburgh scholarship – which was co-funded by Scottish Enterprise" he says.

"That was really important market validation for me - asking, should I jump ship from being an academic to forming a spin-out company? That gave me a year to find out if it was going to work out or not. And it did.

“I managed to get the proposition, build the team and get ready to exit the university. Because I was taking medical device technology and applying it to a completely different sector – whilst I knew it would work – there were some key challenges around how we would achieve our goals.

“We underwent a SMART feasibility study, which really helped us to overcome one or two of our wee challenges. And of course, the intellectual assets team were instrumental in helping us to secure patents that cover the innovations that were made."

Looking to the future

With a strong commercial strategy in place, Cutitronics are looking to the future with optimism. 

"We are now in conversations with nine out of the top ten global premium skincare brands, at a senior vice president level and above. Combined, these companies own around £11 billion of the premium skincare market.

"By the nature of the global beauty brands we’re partnering with, it’s going to be an international product. Our plan is to work with a few of these partners, and as our technology isn’t product-specific – it will enhance any product that it is partnered with. We will be initially focusing on anti-aging and facial skincare products addressing lines and wrinkles, skin tone and texture."

"We’ve already pulled the technology together and evidenced it. We’re now in the process of going to our potential customers and saying, ‘this is the future of skincare’.

"With the dawn of home-use devices, engineering technology is very rapidly becoming an important skincare sector. We’re going to these guys and saying: this is the trend, and if you want to be ahead – partner with us and we can give you the connection to your customer that you’ve been desperate for."

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