Interviews

CRN’s request for clarification, as it continues litigating complaint in US District Court for Southern New York, highlights what it contends is vague and overly general language in the legislation passed in October with a 22 April effective date.

“Consumers are rewriting the rules when it comes to where they are going for information and the type of information they are looking for,” reports Kaizo’s Anita Nahal, speaking to HBW Insight’s Over the Counter podcast about the agency’s latest Communicating Health Messages report. Trust in social media has increased, and personal beliefs and lived experiences are playing a larger role in shaping attitudes to health information, explains Nahal, who is director at the London-based PR agency. However, consumers are also continuing to “tune-out” from health messages and be less critical of sources. To help consumers navigate this new reality, consumer health companies need to adapt, rethink and reset their communication strategies, Nahal advises.

There’s no simple answer to the question of how to make medicines packaging sustainable, says international recycling consultancy and Veolia Group subsidiary Circpack. “Manufacturers need to assess what works best for them, and recyclers will do the same,” Circpack analyst and circular packaging expert Filipe Vieira de Castro tells HBW Insight in this exclusive Q&A. “The best thing we can all do is put effort into finding common ground between systems, which comes down to better understanding the complexities between them.”

Women’s Voices for the Earth continues to call attention to cosmetic ingredients’ potential health impacts on users including salon workers, while pushing the Cosmetic Ingredient Review to consider a wider variety of safety information in its assessment work.

Artificial intelligence opportunities are on the rise for marketers, including in the beauty and personal-care sectors. Reed Smith partner Stacy Marcus offers advice on staying compliant with US consumer protection and copyright laws in this rapidly changing world.

“Companies can innovate right now, and they have confidence in these tools, these [non-animal] approaches, and they feel they can put these products on the market safely,” said Erin Hill, CEO and president of the International Collaboration on Cosmetics Safety. “The holdup is that they can’t register these new products, because there’s a lack of confidence in the regulatory community.”

Using AI-based programs to collect and store consumer information risks running afoul of new health privacy laws cropping up in US states. Lack of federal regulation or guidance on the issue is one of the biggest challenges for beauty firms deploying AI, according to Stacy Marcus, partner at Reed Smith LLP.

In this episode, HBW Insight’s Europe and US editors bring their expertise to bear on the current the trend towards standalone OTC companies in global consumer health. We look at four major players: Haleon, which separated from GSK almost two years ago; Kenvue, soon to celebrate its first anniversary as a new company; Sanofi Consumer Healthcare, which is poised to split from its pharma parent; and Bayer, which has decided to buck the trend, holding on to its consumer health division. We discuss some of the advantages of becoming a standalone company, for example in leaning into a wider concept of self-care.

In the year since its establishment, the International Collaboration on Cosmetics Safety has worked to engage with regulators as they build frameworks for assessing cosmetic safety without animal tests. ICCS president and CEO Erin Hill discusses current challenges and what lies ahead.

Wade Ackerman, partner at Covington & Burling who served previously as senior FDA counsel to US Senate Health Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee leadership, discusses expectations for FDA activity under modernized cosmetics regulations in 2024.

VeriSIM uses generative AI for questions such as changing a drug molecule’s chemistry and machine learning to better predict potential biological implications. “When a child is learning a language, you're teaching a child starting from A-to-Z structures, and then suddenly they start speaking. Then they start learning different things, and then they get into problem solving. That's really what AI is getting really good at now,” says CEO Jo Varshney.

“It's a very expensive process for an OTC drug because you don't make significantly high margins compared to a blockbuster cancer drug. For pharma companies utilizing our platform, you can reduce that efficiency challenge and increase the probability of success,” says VeriSIM CEO Jo Varshney.

“I think the symptoms of the core disease of quality is not having an independent layer or just not being able to invest more in quality or whatever the other root causes of addressing these quality issues,” says analytical lab president David Light.

In this episode, HBW Insight dives into personalized wellness with Marni Allen, chief marketing officer at tailored supplements manufacturer Bioniq. Named as one of EY UK's 50 Women to Watch in 2022, Allen has over 20 years’ experience in consumer healthcare, and is now working with Bioniq to create the next generation of bespoke wellness products for consumers across the world. As well as its top tier at-home blood test-based service, Bioniq also offers an affordable questionnaire-based option, which leverages the power of AI to analyse users’ nutritional needs and provide unique supplement formulations in the post. Although personalized wellness is still somewhat niche, Allen suggests that AI-based models like Bioniq offer an attractive option for traditional consumer health companies looking to get into this fast-growing market.

In this episode of Over the Counter, HBW Insight speaks to Paul LaTerra, Director, R&D, Global Hair and Scalp for Kenvue, a New Jersey-based consumer health company that markets skin care brands Neutrogena, Aveeno and Lubriderm. We discuss growth of the beauty-from-within supplements market, how the products complement topical skin care and hair formulas and the growing body of research demonstrating significant skin and hair health benefits. 

Whether called “dark patterns,” “shady” online marketing practices, or simply deception on the internet, the issue has taken on high importance at the US Federal Trade Commission and is being tackled by new laws in a growing number of states. Amin Talati Wasserman partner Lauren Aronson discusses in this interview with HBW Insight.