Description of Challenge:

The pharmaceutical sector is one of the most innovative and profitable in global scale and thus one of the most competitive. Such competition for profitability increase has been leading the major companies to successive mergers or acquisitions of smaller businesses. However the pharmaceutical industry has been pushed by an increasingly faster ‘time-to-market’ of its products by impacting the growth of sales and reduction of profitability in developed markets. In parallel pressures related to the increase of R&D costs and the regulatory environment have become a difficult equation to be solved. The cosmetics sector, in turn, is dynamic and expansive. The pace of launching of new products is quite accelerated, which maintains and attracts increasingly demanding customers requiring a continuous search for innovation and quality improvement for the consolidation and strengthening of brands in the market. Thus there is a constant investment in the development of new products able to respond to the great diversity of consumers – which varies according to age group, gender and ethnics – and support to releases through communication and publicizing activities. Furthermore, the cosmetics industry has close relations with other sectors such as chemical, pharmaceutical, packaging and food sectors.

Opportunities for Startups:

• » New active principles, medicaments and technologies in vaccines and excipients, consumables (synthetic or biotechnological) or new use / indication medicaments (possible areas: neurology, infectology, oncology, immunology, allergy, inflammation, acute and chronic pain (gastroenterology);
• » New active principles for cosmetic products (focused in child care, oral health, women’s health, antiaging, skin and hair care);
• » Technologies for cosmetic industry promoting diagnosis (e.g. state of skin and hair) or technologies in ingredients, formulations and others;
• » New technologies and solutions for increase of sensorial or functional performance of products (e.g. devices, wearables, non-cosmetic products supporting the treatment, etc.);
• » Technologies to promote research and development or tests (e.g. toxicological, in vitro, clinical testing);
• » Applied nanotechnology;
• » New systems for controlled release for medicaments and cosmetics;
• » New materials or technologies in biocompatible materials;
• » New technologies and solutions for stability of solutions and tablets (surfactants, processes);
• » New technologies and solutions for packaging;