Latest / Skin Anarchy / Masterclass Monday: Understanding the Fundamentals of Clinical Trials in Skincare ft. Timeline and Dr. Brad Currier

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Masterclass Monday: Understanding the Fundamentals of Clinical Trials in Skincare ft. Timeline and Dr. Brad Currier · Skin Anarchy

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Guys, welcome back to Skin Anarchy.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the third episode in our Timeline Masterclass series.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you guys have been following along.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: We've covered so many amazing topics from things like mitochondrial health and understanding mitochondria to Timeline's approach towards longevity with their patented complex, which is Mito Pure, which is actually Euralithin A.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope you guys have been following along.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if you haven't, make sure you go back and catch up on those episodes because they're really, really amazing.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to our third guest in the series.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: He is the manager of clinical trials at Timeline, Dr.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Brad Courier.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Dr.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Courier.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited to interview you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Eksa, thanks so much for having me.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Really excited to be here and uh having a conversation today.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I'm really excited to dive in.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You have such an awesome background as well.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're really leading timeline in this in this clinical trial space.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's so much we can learn from you when it comes to understanding, obviously, right, as consumers, what is the necessity of a clinical trial?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: What is this necessity of us understanding the clinical relevance of any brand?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a huge area that I'd love to cover.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: But to get us started, I'd love to learn about your journey in this space as a scientist and what led you to Timeline if you kind of walk us down memory lane.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I uh I've been at Timeline now just over a year, but flashing back a few years before that, I'm a Canadian, born and raised in the Toronto area.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I went down to do my bachelor's in St.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Louis, Missouri.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, was down there on a golf scholarship at the time and was really interested in sports performance.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I while I was there, I got involved with an exercise physiology lab.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that really was just the light bulb moment for me of I love research.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was really cool working with these elite athletes, trying to see what we can do to maximize their performance.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And after I'd spent a few years there, I was getting a bit of an appetite for doing something that was a bit more applicable.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's fun to see if you can make someone a little bit of a gold medalist instead of a silver medalist, but it was more exciting to me to think of doing something that could have a meaningful impact in hundreds of thousands of people's lives.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And my grandparents were a big part of my upbringing, and healthy aging really was uh an interest.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I went back uh to Canada to do my PhD in muscle physiology, uh, where I was able to run clinical trials, uh, really looking at exercise and nutrition in this aging setting where maybe people are exercising, maybe they're bedridden, but really looking at how we can see how these interventions impact our health and ultimately our ability to uh to live a long and healthy life.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So during that time, uh that was really where I developed uh some of the skills that that ultimately brought me to Timeline, which was here managing clinical trials.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's something that I know we'll get into, but Timeline is uh science first from the get-go.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a huge team effort that we have here to make it possible.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: But that's a little bit of the the arc of how I kind of went from, I guess, the uh the Canadian uh trying to be an athlete to uh now having the uh the absolute best time doing science to try to make a meaningful impact in people's lives.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's really cool.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I love that you have you're a physiologist and you have this background in physiology because I I often find myself having these conversations with people where I'm like, you know, we don't get enough training in physiology, in medicine or science.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is one of the most critical components of understanding health.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you don't have that grasp on what is physiologically normal for the body, like that's where that's the baseline, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, I think for a lot of consumers, we get so wrapped up in the pathology that we don't think about where is that baseline for us and where's the starting place?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would love for you to speak on this a little bit because you do have, I mean, muscle physiology is very relevant to aging, obviously, as you know.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And especially when we think even about like the facial features that we're always trying to work on through aesthetic medicine, like what are your thoughts on muscle health and how it like kind of correlates with skin health overall?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: I certainly think there's a lot of parallels.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I think one muscle in many cases is rightfully considered a key longevity organ.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's about 40% of our body mass, so it's a huge part of us.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And on top of just needing it for movement, it's very metabolically active.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of our metabolic rate, actually about 80% of it, is determined by how much muscle we have.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it is very important for our movement and metabolism.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a lot of parallels that we can look at with skin.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: One, skin is also very big.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: It is our largest organ, as we've probably heard many people say.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: But a key thing about them is that the both muscle and skin are rich with mitochondria.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And these are the organelles that are the powerhouse of the cell.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they make energy.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: They do so much more in our cells too.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there's a really nice parallel between this massive organ in our body and the prevalence of mitochondria, that we can draw a lot of parallels for aging and healthy aging.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um with I I love how you mentioned the skin features too, because that is something I think, at least so far in my experience, has been maybe underappreciated, which is just actually the the muscles, say in our face and how they atrophy or hypertrophy and how that impacts the facial image.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a fascinating area with not just how the actual skin is changing, but to your point about physiology, it's how all these things go together.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly why I wanted to bring that up to you because I hear so much uh in especially in the aesthetic space, right?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like the deeper you get into aesthetics, we're working with like neurotoxins and trying to relax muscles, and we are working on that plane.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're working very much on the muscle and the fascia and all of these components.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: But then when you think about longevity, we don't talk about it.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: We especially in skin longevity, we talk about how is the skin laying on top of all these structures?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, we got to get down to the root cause.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: We got to figure out like what's underneath and where does that health come in?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's where also where I get very fascinated with timeline because mitochondria are not tissue specific.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: They are everywhere.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: We we have them in every cell in our body.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love for you to talk to us a little bit about when you guys, when timeline was approaching just mitochondrial health at large, what are some of the big things on the clinical trials perspective that really stood out that you wanted to measure, that you wanted to get out there and say, we got to test this, got to show people the relevance of this like marker or whatever it might be.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so maybe even taking a step back, you know, Timeline's origin was looking at these foods that appear to have prolific health benefits and the natural molecules in them.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I know you've covered it in the series already, but a key one was mitopure or urolithin A, which is a postbiotic that's formed when we digest polyphenols that are in things like pomegranates, nuts, berries.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the the road to doing this research has not been short.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's over 15 years now that timeline's been researching mitopure urolithin A.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And through that time, we were really driven to say, okay, we're going to do things the right way.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And when you find this interesting molecule that seems to be having some benefits, early on, you're looking at preclinical models.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: So these are things like animal studies, where you can measure lifespan, muscle health much easier than doing a human clinical study.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it was known from an early stage that urolithin A was improving mitochondria.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And as that progressed into clinical development or human trials, that was where you could start looking at the mitochondria, but also other things in the tissue.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the uh the knowledge that mitopeure was having an impact on the mitochondria was known known before even getting into clinical trials, which originated with muscle in Timelin's case, and now of course with skin.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the mitochondria target was was known uh early on and has definitely continued to be a key pillar of how mitopeure has its benefits.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think also one thing that's fascinating is that we don't we're not really dealing with, I feel like in longevity, we're not so much dealing with like these before and after scenarios.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's more of like this long-term uh tracking.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking at long-term tracking.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how does that really come into play when you're looking at it from a clinical trials perspective, especially for a brand, a consumer-facing brand?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you think the relevance needs to be?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And like what are some things we should look for as consumers in these kind of studies that make them relevant to us and separate the fluff from things that might just be for marketing?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: A few things I'd mention on that.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: One is just clinical trials, period.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Clinical trials, the reason they are so important is one word, confidence.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: How sure can we be that something is having an effect?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're not looking for a skincare product or any other intervention without the hopes that it could do something beneficial for us.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And clinical trials are the systematic way that we can generate the evidence to be confident in the effect something has.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: So certainly we look at how different products or ingredients can impact key aging features or other components of skin health.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: One thing I would highlight to consumers to look at in terms of the evidence that's available.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you're considering a product, one, does it have clinical trial data?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Has it been studied in humans?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And two, if it has, what did they show?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you can often tell a lot based on claims that are around the product.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes in the cosmetics or skincare field, I see claims that are around things like reported or self-perceived improvements and not objective or uh benefits where say people might think they've they felt like their skin was more hydrated or they felt like their skin was more supple.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not necessarily saying that they've proven that in clinical studies.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's just an anecdote from one person.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas when you have data from clinical trial, you can actually calculate and look at, okay, how much did this product improve wrinkling?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: How much did it improve hydration?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think looking for those concrete claims, um, it's a bit of a unique situation from a regulatory perspective in the cosmetics space, but looking for those powerful claims that are substantiated by clinical data, I think that's one I've noticed in the consumer-facing messaging that I see a difference between this brands doing at best and the ones that are uh some of the fluff that you talk about.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's really fascinating because I think also with topical, and I want to kind of dive into this part, especially because with topical products, this becomes even more hazy, I think, for consumers.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because I, I mean, I know I have a hard time sometimes believing, trusting that this there is relevance here in the clinical data that I'm looking at.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the hurdles with topical products when it comes to really doing a robust clinical study?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, with topical products specifically, I think the the biggest one at large, just from the field, is that there's not as much standardization as there would be in, say, the pharmaceutical industry, where there's a pretty clear progression of if you want to get something approved and be able to sell it or take it, it's got to go through some certain checkpoints.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: The uh the rigor is less in nutrition and cosmetics.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it does put the onus on consumers and practitioners to kind of separate the the wheat from the chaff to see the signal in the noise.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think some of the practical hurdles that people uh will encounter if they're trying to do this are things like cost or time and expertise.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the these studies, uh it's not a cookie-cutter method, depending on what type of product you're testing, what type of outcome you're looking at.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's a specific method that would be best or the gold standard way to determine if that product has an effect.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's one where we need to do an increasingly good job as uh as people in the space of educating consumers on how that may look.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the the hurdles to doing clinical trials are things that a lot of brands will cut corners on.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: If if they don't see the the benefit or they don't think it's worth their while, then they won't take the time and the money to actually invest in doing the clinical trials and generating the evidence so you know that you're delivering the best possible solution.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I like what you said.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this whole idea of like cutting corners because that has been for me, when I look for any data, I'm always wondering, right?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not always in the back of my mind, is like, well, what didn't you look at?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: What what did you really base this around?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But there's I feel like there's a way to bias some of this stuff.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like when you really have a company that does it right, it becomes obvious.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when you don't, it becomes it's really hazy because there's there's a lot of brands that are like there's one clinical study that they've done.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that's not enough.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I need to see more.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I need to see what were all your endpoints, what how many angles did you look at this with?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's where I get very lost as both a consumer as well as a scientist, because I'm like, I don't, I don't know if I can believe you flat out.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like I can, and that's why I asked about topicals because topical, there is no standardized model for the skin.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: We have these things now with organoids, human organoid systems are coming out more, and like people are utilizing them more and more for these kinds of reasons, but even that is just too early sometimes.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like when when it comes to things now, you're absolutely right, and maybe I've just I just I'll I'll give an example because I realize maybe some people have very inexperience with clinical trials.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: I know you and I live in this world, so we know but one example that maybe consumers can look for if you're thinking about a product.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: One if the you'll just see in the marketing if they say they have human clinical trials.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: A second one would just be if that's published.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Most brands that have done the re well, brands that have done the research, that's a huge differentiator because, like you said, there's so much noise.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that publication should be readily available on, say, their website.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't be hard to find.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: An example of what you might look for to the bias point, because you're right, there's no standardized procedure.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe just to illustrate that, say if you're developing a new drug and you want to take it through clinical testing, a key part of that process is pre-registering your trials.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a process where scientists who are about to run a study will publicly declare what they're going to do, you know, what people are they're going to do a study in, what they're going to measure, how long the intervention will be.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a this is a national public registry that you can look at.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then when they've report the results, you can go back and look at if they actually did what they said they were going to do before they started.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that there's no standardization in the cosmetic space.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if one example of when you see companies or organizations that do high quality research, even though it's not required, they go that extra mile and say pre-register trial, publish the study.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a few things like that, um, maybe just to differentiate on where some fields are standardized and this one is not.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a really those are really good points, actually.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for mentioning that.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's I mean, I I couldn't agree with you more.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: That makes a lot of sense.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes these are not published.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of times brands will just say it on their website, they'll just literally list it like under extra information or something like that, but then you can't find the paper.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: So white paper is not a publication, right?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for saying that.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And this is so important for all of you listening out there.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I really think we are getting into that realm now with skincare, especially where it's we are allowed as consumers now start demanding this.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: We we have enough companies doing it right to where we can say, if you're not doing it, that means you're not doing it.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Don't sugarcoat it to us, just say you didn't do it instead of masking it or pretending.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I mean, I just want to say that I completely agree.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's disingenuous if if you're not, right?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Where the the mission, I think with the people who the companies who are in it for the right reason and the people and consumers what they're looking for, it's the same mission.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're trying to improve our skin health, our you know, skin longevity.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And if we're truly committed to that mission, then things are going to be done the right way.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll see that from the companies that are doing that.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I agree.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to actually dive into timelines data because it's wonderful and it's it's very, very clear to me why the brand works so well.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know I have seen huge changes in my skin since I've started utilizing it.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess I'm like for myself, I'm living proof.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: My skin, it definitely has improved since I used the products, and I would love to learn about what were some of the major endpoints you were looking at with some of the products.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know one of my favorite products is the serum.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: I really love that product.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you could kind of dive into that for us.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it the the line has expanded just over the last year with the addition of the cleanser and exfoliator.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: For that, there have been four key products.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: The serum, obviously, uh that's a great, great product, really enjoyable experience.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm newer to skincare in the last few years as a user, admittedly.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: I need for improvement.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the my my better half makes sure I stay on it.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: But um so it so it's that's a new one, but the serum is a brilliant feeling and the other three are are cream.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: So one an eye cream, a dewy cream, and a barrier cream.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: In the now, we just finished up the 12th clinical trial that we've done on uh on timeline products.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And in those first few trials, after showing the safety of these products, some of the key endpoints I would consider canonical or or hallmark aging, skin aging targets.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: So these will be things like skin wrinkling, skin hydration, skin barrier function.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And they and really they kind of are representative uh in many ways of how the skin is aging.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: So wrinkles we can all think of as how much are the wrinkles changing, but also how's the structure changing?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like are they are they deeper?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Are they shallower after using a product?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one that we do see uh with the products improving.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now we can we can pick any trial because they've all uh they've all included it and they all sh it's all showing a beneficial effect.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: But usually you'll see anywhere in the range of uh, depending on the duration of the study, you know, 10 to 30 percent reduction in wrinkling over a month or two to generalize 10 trials into one.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of the range people typically or that we typically uh observe in the clinical studies.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the eye cream is a really neat one where it actually just came out last year too, but fascinating data and really showing some of the best uh efficacy data in terms of how well it does reduce those wrinkles.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it they're they're all great products, and we've started to apply them into different scenarios.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: But skin wrinkling, hydration, barrier function, those are all things that we're looking at to get a complete picture of how these products are benefiting our skin longevity.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's interesting.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: That that's huge, though.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: That wrinkle reduction number, that's really huge.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's better than most that I've ever come across because.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: People never say that.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: They always say, like, oh, well, fine lines were reduced and pores were blurred.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And no one ever just outright, I think, says these days we actually saw a reduction in wrinkles and the depth and all that.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that's very, very fascinating.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: I can definitely see that.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a great product.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to actually dive into a little bit more because one thing that I think a lot of people are trying to understand right now, especially in longevity, is there are these like very much pillar molecules, just the ingredients that we are looking at, right?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: In the skincare longevity space for timeline, that's urolithin, it's mito pure.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the brand also markets itself as being mitobiotic.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So what does that mean from the clinical trial lens and the data lens?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think mitobiotic, uh, it's a it's a great and well-fitting name.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: So biotic simply just means a living organism, right?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And mito, obviously, mitochondria.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think the mitobiotic phrase and name really captures nicely that we are living organisms that need to be nourished.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so are mitochondria.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what we're trying to do with these formulations is support our entire, the entire ecosystem that is our body, and the not just the some cells, but all the components of our cells.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: So from a from a clinical trial perspective, that goes back to the the original studies where we were looking at, okay, what is the mechanism of action of things like urolithin A?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now we know from the previous studies, going back now, I guess, 10 years or so, its benefits on mitochondria health.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: But when we wanted to look specifically at the skin, it was saying, okay, what's it doing that's unique to the skin?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And in one of the first studies, it was a bit more invasive where we took skin biopsies from people using uh what's now the barrier cream.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And after using the product, we did a deep profiling of what genes and proteins were changing following use.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you did see this significant upregulation of collagen synthesis and organization.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: So showing that by using this product, that there was a benefit unique to skin in that the collagen matrix and what's comprising the skin was improving with use.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: So from a clinical perspective, that early finding of how is this molecule actually working informed some of the things we might target or try to improve in in future iterations.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's really interesting because I think one of the biggest questions I think I have, and I'm glad that Timeline, I just want to say this before I asked another question.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I'm glad about Timeline is that you guys aren't just using like buzzwords.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: People have so many like proprietary names these days.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's really important for consumers.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So for everyone listening in, longevity to me, especially in skincare right now, is interesting because of that, because you can't make claims as a company about fluff anymore.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I think there's like two camps that we're in where people either believe that it's like this big over umbrella term, but then I'm more so in the camp of like, no, I think it's more precision than anything else.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, that's why I asked you about like what is actual, what's the meaning of mitobiotic?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is an actual term that's being utilized to describe biology.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we're looking at longevity skincare, it's important to kind of make that differentiation rather than just saying, like, oh, this like blurs your skin or whatever.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think for consumers, this is the era of precision more than anything else.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think with our conversation and what we're talking about from the data side, it's very relevant to kind of have that overarching theme, have that in our mind when we're looking at these kind of products.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this should be precision-based.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: It shouldn't be just random marketing terminology and whatnot.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, absolutely.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: I completely agree.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it does um, it does capture it nicely where it is uh the mitochondria is important and we're just nourishing it because we're a living organism.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's all we're trying to do is uh keep keep everything healthy.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: One of my biggest questions, honestly, from the clinical data side is what is the biggest hurdle with measuring something like an organelle?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Mitochondria are so small and there's so many of them.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we know, in my opinion, from science, we know so little about them.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're still learning so much.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: What, in your opinion, is the hardest part about studying something like that?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the the hardest part, and I wouldn't say even that maybe it's the difficulty because uh we're very fortunate, especially at timeline.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: We've got some world-class uh scientists, the best in the world at what they do in their fields, and they at least make it look easy.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how they do some of the centrobiology and formulation.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it it wows me every day what the team does.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I think um something to that's so important when doing clinical studies is that you're intentional with the design of the trial or what you're doing.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because you want it to be worthwhile, you want it to be novel, but you don't want it to be uh redundant or superfluous.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll give you an example in that.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: I talked about how in the the early skin one of the the first few skin trials that Timeline had done, we'd collected those muscle biopsies and got an idea for the cellular mechanism of how this product or this active was having an impact on skin.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: In subsequent trials, we don't always take biopsies because we've we've generated that data, we understand what's going on, and skin biopsies are a burden on the participant.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when you have a skin biopsy, it's relatively easy to look at the mitochondria.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: You separate all the cells, you break them down, and you can isolate those organelles and parts of a cell.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not always necessary.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: When you've established how something works at the cellular level, ultimately we want to target that cellular health to cascade and impact the overall physiology.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: So now with a lot of the trials we run, it is more what we call a phenotypic or a physical outcome, where the mechanism is understood.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're seeing if different outcomes such as barrier function or skin wrinkles or hydration are impacted differently because that's a lower burden on the participant.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's really important when human research to make sure that uh at the end of the day, you've got human volunteers uh willingly participating in these trials, and you want to make sure that whatever you're measuring is worth their while.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so that that would I would say is um how we've kind of transitioned from the the cellular-based work um in clinical trials to now the efficacy type trials, looking at how well something ultimately accomplishes our goal.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love that you guys have jumped into actual human trials and you're looking at real skin.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's huge.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's absolutely huge.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I honest to God, I have had this like I've I've been on this rant, I feel like, for years at this point, where I'm just like, please get out of the petri dish.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to human skin.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta look at the skin, we gotta look at real patients.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: We have to unfortunately, there are so many ingredients that really pop up on the market these days where it's like the only study they'll have is that one in vitro study.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And people will, you know what I mean?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like immediately, like the marketing kicks in.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Immediately, everyone's like, Yeah, this is gonna fix everything, and my fat pads are gonna recover.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: All it's just insane.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's amazing that you guys are just so focused on no, we gotta look at this in real human skin.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's yeah, understand the science, but also know the product, right?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something really unique about Timeline, is that every product that we market has been studied in clinical trials with humans.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it actually, you just saying that made me think uh to your earlier point about differentiating claims that are maybe a little bit of fluff versus legitimate claims.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll see that a lot when uh company hasn't done clinical trials is how the if is the claim on the product or is it on the ingredient?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now, don't get me wrong, ingredient claims are super important to know that a certain part of that formulation has an effect.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: But if there's no statement saying that the product has been shown to be safe or have these effects, then oftentimes you'll just get people mixing a few ingredients together and claiming based on what they put in it and not on what the complete product does.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could like give you a standing ovation for saying that, honest to God.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like that, thank you so much for saying that.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why we don't question that as consumers more.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that has been on my mind, I kid you not, for I think a decade at this point, where it's like, why aren't we asking people to look at like explain to me why your entire formula works?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Please tell me.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know that your active ingredient or your main ingredient, whatever you're marketing, okay, cool.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: You might have done the all the studies and all that's in isolation in a petri dish in a in a test tube, even with stability testing.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: I asked this question.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's great in a lab, but then when it's sitting on my shelf in my bathroom and getting exposed to all the heat fluctuations, all that stuff.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Where is that data?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Where, how can you tell me this is going to work for me after X amount of time or whatever?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, this is, I mean, this is really, I feel like one of those moments in an industry, especially like skincare and beauty, where so much has been fueled for so long by marketing that we are finally taking that turn around the bend.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're going around the bend on this and we're saying, okay, enough.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: We need to know this and we need to really get the context down, because without that context, nothing matters.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I I love that you said that.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: I really, really I appreciate so much that you said that.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I completely agree.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's an exciting time to be in this space.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And people rightfully should be expecting that level of excellence from wherever they're getting their product, right?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: You should have that confidence that it's safe and that it's going to work.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I I do think there's uh an increase in the opportunity, or should I say audience willing to hear?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why obviously super grateful to be on your platform to help do that because there is an onus on the scientists and the people doing it to help educate.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't blame my siblings or anyone for not knowing this about skincare.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't know that's about their fields, right?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's it is uh important to make sure that those of us in the space are educating individuals so they understand and can make the decision for themselves what's important and what's not.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't agree more.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I love that there are now brands that are really putting scientists absolutely first, front and center.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that's really one of the biggest driving forces for me as a consumer, why I fell in love with Timeline to begin with, even before like I started looking into you guys more from having you on the show.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, I really fell in love with the brand because a lot of people ask me, I'll tell you, we get emails all the time about like, well, the products are X amount of money, or I don't want to go outside of this budget.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I always try to tell people is like, if you guys look at brands, especially right now, when things are very expensive, clinical trials are not cheap, you guys.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're not cheap, they cost a company sometimes millions of dollars.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you're looking at those costs and then you're looking at a serum that is actually backed, you gotta factor that in.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: You got to give brands a little bit of laxity here, okay?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because they are, if they're doing it right, they're not gonna be able to sell that thing to you for 20 bucks.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that's not right now, unfortunately, it's not possible.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really actually want to bring that up too, just to put that out there to our audience, because we do get a lot of these questions of, well, you're recommending these products, but this is, but it's like if you buy that product and you know it's backed by science and you know the data is there, I'd rather you buy that one product than the five others that you're gonna buy for the same amount of money that have no data.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's just something that I think it's a it's a shift, it's a shift in mindset.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like what you were saying, we got to let people interpret that information and take it for what it really is and make your decisions based on that.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, give the give a give people the information for them to make the decision.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And agreed.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh on our side, we're gonna keep doing the most innovative side so that when someone does faced with that decision and there may be between two products or whether they should have any product, they at least are well informed on okay, here obviously you see the cost of the product, but here are the benefits that and what we've seen in multiple clinical trials, what you might be able to expect, and really just try to give people as much information so that they can make uh the right decision for them.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one question I will ask you, and this is for all of the doctors out there that are tuning in or that are curious about timelines specifically, what are some things that I that you think are very, very uh standout points for a physician to look at if they're thinking about carrying the brand in their clinic or they want to like recommend it in a consultation or something?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: What are what are some clinical data points that you think were very standout and extraordinary?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so clinical data points, if you're considering looking at any product, of course, first and foremost is safety and stability, like we're saying, right?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like do no harm, rule number one.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then that and then looking kind of uh won't rehash it, but what we were saying earlier about clinical trial, you know, you've got objective data showing the efficacy of a product beyond it just being safe.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: When you have those things, what are some of the things you can look for in timeline products?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: So the the key markers like I was talking about, where we do see improvements in wrinkling, improved skin hydration, uh, improved barrier function.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that stuck out to me as you ask about surprising clinical findings, the exfoliator actually that came out this year, that was one of the more intriguing studies we uh we had done.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what we did in this case is we had individuals come in and we would we had a few test areas on their forearms.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: And on some of the test areas, we would put a dye.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a very dark, dark color.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And over two weeks, they would apply this exfoliator to that area.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: There was a you know an untreated control on another area with the dye, so we could see not just how the product was doing versus baseline, but also how it was doing to an untreated or placebo-controlled area.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: And what we saw in that case was that the exfoliator did significantly improve skin cell turnover and renewal, but the barrier function wasn't compromised when we did that.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I that was probably one of the most uh what I felt was some of the most neat findings was that you can have this cellular improvement, this renewal that you see at the skin level without compromising the function of the tissue.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I I thought that was just really neat as someone who's you know studied protein turnover for years, that you can actually stimulate that recovery and renewal process without compromising the integrity of the skin.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I thought that was fascinating.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is fascinating.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's huge.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in the world we live in right now where exfoliation is like the culprit behind so many barrier issues for so many people.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's absolutely huge.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's very fascinating.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I think that's another part about I think for me timeline, like it's just it's not just about the ingredients you're using, it's also about like the approach to skin health overall.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: And like I think that's what really makes it a true longevity company is that it's not the skincare, isn't just skincare because they put one ingredient in there, you guys.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's because they're like rethinking all of this stuff.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: What is an exfoliator supposed to do?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: What is a cleanser supposed to do?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean for your skin in the long term?
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's huge.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's amazing what you just what you shared with me.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's very cool.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, thank you so much, Dr.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Career.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: This has been amazing.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: I can't rave enough about the brand.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, the scientists behind it, all of you are just you're creating a movement, I think, through this brand.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I I really do applaud all of your work and everything that's being done at timeline.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's truly, truly novel and and so amazing to watch as both a scientist and also a consumer of the brand.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we really appreciate it.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's been uh it's been a thrill chatting with you today.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: And also, yeah, I would I would encourage everyone, um, we're we're reachable, we're attainable.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: So if you if you have questions about the brand, obviously uh Dr.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Hecta, the the the channel here, but also uh our team, we're always open.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, at the end of the day, it's about helping people live better lives, improve their health span.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're we're just a resource for people to help do that.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.