A live probiotic skincare ingredient that remains stable without refrigeration now sits on shelves at Harrods. Getting there required solving some serious fermentation and formulation challenges.
At a glace
- Blis Technologies worked with the Biotechnologies Group at to turn a skin-targeting probiotic into a commercial skincare ingredient
- Researchers developed high-oxygen fermentation, specialised filtration, and freeze-drying processes to scale production of the probiotic strain to commercial volumes while keeping it viable.
- The resulting serum, delivers 350 million active probiotics per application and stays stable at room temperature for two years, making it one of the only truly live probiotic skincare products available globally.
We reached out to the Biotechnologies Group to help solve our supply chain, and they were really, really helpful in getting us to commercial scale. We couldn’t find other partners who could do that.
John Hale, Chief Technology Officer
From Dunedin lab to luxury retail
A unique live probiotic skincare product is now on the shelves at some of the world’s most prestigious retailers, including Harrods, Selfridges and Liberty in London. Getting it there, from its beginnings in a Dunedin lab, required solving a series of tricky fermentation and formulation challenges.
Biotech company Blis Technologies partnered with the scientists and engineers of the Biotechnologies Group (then part of Callaghan Innovation) to work their way through the challenges.
The result was a skincare serum that delivers 350 million active probiotics per application. The probiotics are stable at room temperature for two years, making it one of the only truly live probiotic skincare products worldwide.
The product is now under exclusive license to Auckland-based brand Emma Lewisham, sold as Supernatural Blemish Serum. “I genuinely believe that this is the biggest breakthrough in skincare this year,” brand-owner Emma Lewisham told The Denizen soon after the product’s launched in 2023.
Discovering a skin-specific probiotic
The innovation began with lateral thinking by Professor John Tagg, founder of NZX-listed Blis Technologies, which develops oral health probiotic products sold in 70 countries. Professor Tagg wondered: could insights from reducing problematic bacteria in the mouth and throat be applied to skin issues like acne? The question sparked the discovery of Micrococcus luteus Q24, now known as Blis Q24, a skin-specific probiotic strain that decreases problematic bacteria on skin.
“Blis Q24 could inhibit pathogens directly related to skin issues like acne and eczema, and generally stabilise the microbiome,” explains John Hale, Blis Chief Technology Officer. The company could see the skincare market potential, but they hit a wall: Blis could grow the organism in their Dunedin lab, but creating a commercial product required high-oxygen fermentation capacity they didn't have.
“We did a lot of in vitro work at the University of Otago and at the company, but at a certain point we couldn't progress the work in-house because we had some niche technical requirements,” says Hale. “We reached out to the Biotechnologies Group to help solve our supply chain, and they were really, really helpful in getting us to commercial scale. We couldn’t find other partners who could do that. With their expertise, we were able to solve the fermentation problem, which gave us a reliable source of material and everything else could flow from there.”
Scaling the science for commercial skincare
Between 2016 and 2021, Biotechnologies Group experts developed and scaled the fermentation process to 1,000 litres, implemented specialist crossflow filtration and protective freeze-drying techniques, then conducted commercial-scale production runs. This work then enabled formulation studies, stability testing, safety studies with human participants, and clinical trials conducted in New Zealand that proved efficacy.
Formulation technology that preserved the live probiotic in an oil base was patented. The live probiotics in the resulting skincare product remain dormant but viable, until the user mixes it with a second product – a two-pump system that activates the probiotics on application.
Our team’s fermentation and bioprocessing capability – particularly handling organisms with specific oxygen requirements – and practical production know-how solved a bottleneck that was stopping Blis from being able to commercialise their innovation.
Dr Paul Rose, Biotechnologies Group Leader
The pathway to commercialisation wasn’t just technically challenging, but meant confronting some tough commercial realities. “It's such a difficult ingredient to formulate with,” says Hale. “It’s not something that we could easily sell as an ingredient. We had to actually licence the technology because it was the product plus the formulation technology that keeps the probiotics stable.”
Now under exclusive licence to Emma Lewisham, the product positions New Zealand as a pioneer in the still-emerging probiotic skincare category, where claims typically refer to inactive probiotics. Supernatural Blemish Serum is backed by patents and scientific publications demonstrating New Zealand’s capability in precision fermentation for high-value biological products.
The product may be difficult to formulate, hard to scale, and require specialised fermentation expertise – but being brave enough to take on those challenges has delivered two rarities in the skincare industry: clinical evidence of efficacy, and shelf space at elite retailers that have thousands of brands clambering for places on their shelves.
Scaling your fermentation product?
From early-stage process development to pilot-scale production, the Biotechnologies Group helps scale up fermentation based products. Get in touch to explore how we can support your next stage of growth.
