Silab puts €6.5m behind R&D
French cosmetics development group Silab, which engineers natural molecules and develops skin care and hair care products for the major cosmetics groups, is to invest €6.5m in a new research and development centre on a site near its HQ at Objat in the Correze region. The company was set up by Jean Paufique, an agronomics engineer and biologist, in 1984 and now has annual sales of some €24.3m (2007) of which 54% are generated abroad.
French cosmetics development group Silab, which engineers natural molecules and develops skin care and hair care products for the major cosmetics groups, is to invest €6.5m in a new research and development centre on a site near its HQ at Objat in the Correze region. The company was set up by Jean Paufique, an agronomics engineer and biologist, in 1984 and now has annual sales of some €24.3m (2007) of which 54% are generated abroad.
Silab currently invests about a quarter of its annual sales in R&D. The new centre has been supported by both the regional and central governments with grants worth €3m and will enable the company to reinforce its research potential considerably through the acquisition of new evaluation and analytic technologies. The main emphasis of its research for the cosmetics sector will be in cellular and molecular biology, raw materials and finished products.
Silab's director general Thierry Cruchon, said existing facilities had become too small and no longer matched the company's ability to apply its technologies in the complete development of products. A further production unit will be set up between now and 2010 at a cost of €14m with the aim of increasing output threefold by 2013.