San Diego-based Debut Biotechnology predominantly works in the beauty industry, growing ingredients in a lab versus sourcing them from nature.
It’s made two big deals recently. One is with L’Oreal to make ingredients for its products, which, sure, makes sense.
The other is with the US Department of Defense, which gave Debut a $2m contract to generate plans for a biomanufacturing facility, per Fast Company.
Biomanufacturing…
… involves using living systems — animal or plant cells, microorganisms, etc. — to manufacture products. It’s used to make all sorts of things, including plastic, textiles, chemicals, fuels, medications and vaccines, and even food.
The US government is keen on beefing up domestic supply chains for such materials and relying less on China. In January, the DOD announced it would award up to $2m to ~30 businesses to provide business and technical plans for US bio-industrial manufacturing facilities.
Debut is the first such contract. In the future, it could receive another $100m to build its facility, a process that would take three to five years.
Why Debut?
Debut uses proprietary technology to create bio-identical ingredients for the beauty industry. This is because while people love so-called natural ingredients, some are scarce or difficult to source.
Anne Colonna, head of advanced research in L’Oreal R&I, explained it to Glossy using a familiar ingredient: vitamin C.
Vitamin C is found in fruits, but it would take dozens of them to get enough for a cosmetic vitamin C solution. Biotech can replicate vitamin C cost-effectively and at scale, and such ingredients — AKA biomimetics — are becoming increasingly common in the beauty industry as companies strive for sustainability.
Debut founder and CEO Joshua Britton told Fast Company that, while beauty makes up 95% of its business, many ingredients overlap with military and other commercial uses.
Debut, in particular, has already invested in its own supply chain infrastructure, and the new facility could be especially versatile in shifting production to meet needs.
And just in case you were wondering: Britton clarified that, no, Debut will not be making materials for use in weapons.
