A slate of speakers at the inaugural NutriCosmetic Summit offered compelling insights to attendees of the inaugural event, held last Thursday at the Renaissance Hotel in Las Vegas. The Science and Regulatory track featured experts from Sabinsa, Carotech and Rousselot, as well as industry insiders Anthony Almada and New Hope Supply Network director Len Monheit.

Almada chaired a session in which the state of the science concerning several promising ingredients was presented. Caroline Negre of Rousselot showed the promising results for skin health generated by their Peptan collagen ingredient. Sharon Ling of Carotech spoke on their Tocomin ingredient. Tocomin, derived from palm oil, contains all eight isomers of vitamin E, both tocotrienols and tocopherols. Ling presented data showing this combination made for a much more efficacious ingredient. And Lakshmi Prakash, PhD, of Sabinsa spoke on her company’s wide offering in the beauty-from-within segment, including Cocosin, Curcumin C3 complex and their Saberry ingredient, a patent-pending extract of the Indian gooseberry plant.

In a session that also featured Kristie McNamara of Tilvee Eco Ethical Skincare and Cynthia Pasqeulla of SoCal Cleanse, attorney Farah Ahmed spoke on the regulatory challenges facing the beauty industry. Many products fall into gray areas between FDA and FTC jurisdictions. Complicating matters are organic certifications that may, or may not, move an ingredient or finished product into the food category, thus bringing the USDA into the picture.

Monheit’s talk focused on science as a product development tool. Monheit stressed that careful study design with clear and measurable endpoints is vital to support products both from a regulatory and consumer relevance standpoint.

The Business and Marketing track featured such industry heavyweights as Tom Vierhile of Datamonitor and beverage guru Jim Tonkin. Among others presenting was Kathe Shelke of CorvusBlue and journalists Kimbery Stewart, former editorial director of Functional Ingredients and Carlotta Mast, editorial director of Nutrition Business Journal. Conference attendees may access online versions of the talks featuring audio and power point slides. For those who missed the event, go to www.nutricosmeticsummit.com to purchase access to these materials.