P&G puts OBJ’s magnetic cosmetic tech in spotlight
26/07/2016 OBJ Limited’s Chairman Glyn Denison (Left) pictured with Managing Director Jeffrey Edwards in the labratory in Perth. Lincoln Baker/The Australian
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It took life sciences company OBJ (OBJ) 10 years to have its “watershed” moment, but chairman Glyn Denison says now that the “coconut has been cracked” there is no stopping the small Perth company’s global rise.
The company’s technology, which is based on a magnetic formula that was first designed to heal wounds, has already caught the attention of US consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble. By next year, Australian consumers can test the technology themselves through an eye cream developed by skincare company SK-II.
When OBJ founder and technology developer, Jeffrey Edwards, designed the technology to try and help his dad, who suffered from diabetic ulcers on his feet, he says he had no idea what he discovered would go on to be used in skin care, razor blades, joint pain repair and hygienic cleaning products.
The company, which entered the market in 2004 through a backdoor listing, had originally looked at vaccine work and drug delivery but Denison says the regulatory constraints for a little Australian company were too big. So OBJ changed tack and decided to move into the fast moving consumer goods market.
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The company, an 8c stock, isn’t widely known and has deliberately flown under the radar, according to its chairman, but Denison says it is now ready to tell its story.
“We took a decision in 2008 to not promote the company until we had it validated by a big major,” he says.
“In the next couple of years we’ll move into the higher volume pharmaceutical markets. As it grows, this company will be a significant pharmaceutical company in Australia in its own right. It’s only a matter of time.”
It is Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest consumer goods company, that has put OBJ in the spotlight. P&G has up to 70 different brands, including SK-II, Gillette, a list of household cleaning produces, Oral B and Olay.
“We have a $US80 billion company prepared to put their product range on our little technology … it’s not lost on their competitors,” says Denison.
He joined OBJ in 2005 on hearing about the company from Edwards who was sitting next to him on a flight from Singapore to Perth.
The technology Edwards developed involves pushing molecules through the skin using physics, as opposed to the most common method of chemistry.
The technology is based on the process of diamagnetic, which is when materials are repelled by a magnetic field rather than attracted. A magnetic field does not impact or interact with a product’s chemistry or function, so for OBJ’s partners, it is an ideal way to increase skin penetration of products.
P&G was on board after doing a major trial in China in 2013 on the impact of the technology on an SK-II eye cream. That trial showed that through the use of OBJ’s technology it could deliver three times the quantity of a product in a third of the time through the skin.
In April 2014, the two groups signed a multi-product development agreement that means each of the P&G brands can go to OBJ and request how its diamagnetic technology can improve the performance of their product.
“The watershed moment was in 2014. The company had been going 10 years and finally it was like the coconut had been cracked,” Denison says.
“The credibility of an $US80bn a year company that says it accepts our technology across multiple products spoke volumes.”
Edwards, who had to sell his house in the early years to support the company, adds that OBJ has committed to P&G to introduce new products on a continuous basis until 2024.
“We are at the heart of their whole innovation,” he says.
Edwards, who has a software engineering background, was working in the orthopaedic space looking at a technology to repair unhealing bones and a byproduct of that technology platform he was developing was the fact it increased blood flow around skin.
With that knowledge Edwards says he was thinking about his dad’s diabetic ulcers on his feet and thought maybe he could increase blood flow and heal un-healing wounds using the technology he was developing.
He says further research showed that the technology was changing the permeability of the skin.
The idea was to introduce a high molecule weight material through the skin that would have a healing effect.
“We found that we had a specific configuration of a magnetic field that was changing skin permeability,” Edwards says.
“The next thing was to think there are many products that are pushed through the skin or would be handy if you could push it through the skin.”
The company, which expects to start receiving royalties from its major partner next year, has been expanding the reach of its technology and is now seeking a partner for its “Bodyguard” products.
That line aims to reverse the effect of joint ageing. The technology is pushed through a bandage type application, which is applied to the painful joint area.
OBJ is also looking at surface hygiene products.
A potential future game changer for the company is an idea that Edwards dreamt up while in the shower seven years ago — personalised skincare. It involves technology that connects to a smartphone to personalise the way skincare products interact with an individuals’ skin.
It considers variables such as age, ethnicity, skin condition, climate and other factors that can impact the effect of how a product matches a person’s skin.
Edwards says there are now two large fast growing consumer goods companies after that product.
“It will change the way the industry works,” he says.
OBJ Price at posting:
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