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INTERVIEW Tim Probert – Editor, Personal Care Magazine


LIPOTRUE AT 10: GETTING ACTIVE


Juan Carlos Escudero is the chief executive officer of Spanish cosmetic actives maker LipoTrue. Based in Barcelona, the company is celebrating ten years in business. In conversation with editor Tim Probert, Escudero discusses LipoTrue’s philosophy, product development and sales strategy, and the rise of biotechnology


Tim Probert (TP): This year marks the tenth anniversary of the foundation of LipoTrue. Tell me how it started. Juan Carlos Escudero (JCE): In 2016, four of us at Lipotec - with the support of the former owner of Lipotec - decided to create a new company. They were myself, Silvia Pastor as director for R&D and business development, Mikel Gorostiaga as sales and marketing director, and Marc Esplugas as director for operations. We had a very clear idea of


what we wanted LipoTrue to do: integrating high technology platforms to discover unique, innovative, active ingredients with outstanding efficacies. Startup companies are usually


technology-driven, and they learn about the market and the customer later. In our case, it was totally to the contrary. We knew about the technologies and products, of course, but we knew the customer and the needs of the market even better. LipoTrue now is market driven,


customer oriented and technology based. Being based in Barcelona helps. The cosmetic industry is very strong here, with lots of companies, universities and research centres in the area.


TP: Let’s say someone sat next to you on a plane asked what you do, how would you describe LipoTrue in simple terms? JCE: We are a cosmetic ingredient company developing new technologies and new ideas. We have three different pillars to


implement our ideas. The first one is talent. We are good at attracting and developing talent. The second pillar is innovation. That means innovating with new products, new processes, and also with new ideas in marketing and sales.


The third pillar is excellence.


Not just creating quality products, we also want to be excellent in our services. Our lead time for delivering


products is one week, whether in China or the US. We deliver more than 99% of our orders on time, and this is something that we want to maintain. It is very important for us.


TP: You mentioned your ability to hone talent at LipoTrue. How many employees do you have? JCE: We have 47 people, 50:50 men and women. A third of them are PhD students, another third have Master’s degrees, the other third are technical people. It’s important that we have


PERSONAL CARE MAGAZINE March 2026


people with different expertise: chemists, biologists, microbiologists, geneticists, pharmacists and so on. Everyone has a different approach to problems, and each project has different phases. It’s also important that we have


people with different backgrounds. Around 75% of the people are Spanish, but 25% are from abroad like France, the US, Poland, South America and so on. We need to understand other


markets, other cultures, because one of our strategies to go directly to the customer. Our core business lies in direct-to-customer with additional growth supported by partnerhsips in other key markets. Because our actives are highly


innovative we prioritize a close, tailored collaboration with our key customers, we handle these projects directly to provide the best services. We have a clear idea about our


strategic markets. One is France, because most of the premium brands are located there. The second is the US because


they have premium brands too and volume is huge. The third one is China. It’s not the biggest market for our kind of active ingredients, but it’s growing fast, and they are able to introduce products very quickly.


TP: How are you achieving the objectives? How are you growing in France, USA, China? JCE: We have a commercial office in Paris, a subsidiary in New Jersey for the US and a branch office in Singapore for Asia.


TP: Do you have an office in China? JCE: Not yet. But Asia is growing very fast, and there are a lot of rising stars in China. Most Chinese companies are focused on the Chinese market,


www.personalcaremagazine.com


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