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The Science Behind CeraVe Skincare · The Science of Skin

0:05
SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to the Science of Skin Podcast.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: My name is Dr.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: Ted Lane.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm a board certified dermatologist in Austin, Texas.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: And I'm here with a really special guest, Tom Allison.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh, thanks so much for being with us, Tom.
0:18
SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much for having me, Dr.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: Lane.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: Man, it's this is gonna be great.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: So Tom was there in the early, early days of therapy.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: And so we wanted to kind of get the origin story of the brand, which has, you know, become a worldwide phenomenal brand, but started out in the early 2000s as kind of an idea, Tom, right?
0:40
SPEAKER_01: Like it's just just an amazing story.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: Can you walk us through the early days?
0:45
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: First, thanks so much for your interest.
0:48
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we really appreciate it.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: And of course, your partnership.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: You know, we we love working with you as well as uh Dr.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: Farris and helping to further and advanced uh dermatology.
0:57
unknown: Yeah.
0:57
SPEAKER_02: So to think about CereVee in the early days, first and foremost, it was a brand that started in 2004, started as part of a pharmaceutical company.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: So you may remember the name Coreia Laboratories.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: Does that ring a bell?
1:10
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: So Core Laboratories was a dermatology division of a much larger company called DFB Pharmaceuticals.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: And some of the businesses under DFB, they had a company called Health Point.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: If you remember that's a wound care company, really, really great medicines for debreeding agents, stuff that was used on ulcers, as well as other, you know, other points.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: They also had a manufacturing facility called DPT Laboratories, which I would say was probably the gold standard of topical drug formulators.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they kind of made everybody's drugs back in the day, you know, all these bigger companies.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: So the thing about the Servi brand, I mean, I like to say it started very, you know, low and slow.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: And what do I mean by that?
1:51
SPEAKER_02: Low, meaning it was usually found at your bottom three shelves of your local drugstore, both, you know, CVS, Walgreens, right aid, uh, you know, local, you know, mini or local regional players within drug and slow.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: It was a slow build.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: And it's important the fact that it was started as part of a pharmaceutical uh company, Dr.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: Lane.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: If you think about pharma companies, one of the good things about having an OTC medicine within a pharma company is the fact that you're not beholden to the patent cliff, right?
2:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: We know pharmaceutical companies that have done really well, but once that drug goes off patent, you lose a lot of your um, you know, use a lot of the revenue right away.
2:34
SPEAKER_02: So it was important to diversify the portfolio, to build an OTC, you know, brand to help complement the RX medications that we were developing at the same time.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: But it also was a good business case.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: It was just smart business to develop uh, you know, an OTC business or brand.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you real quick, Tom, what what was your position at the company at that point?
2:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: So when I joined Cory Laboratories, which was actually known as Health Point Dermatology, we named, we changed the name to Query Laboratories in uh the spring of 2004.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: And my first job was really to manage the sales team on the East Coast, uh, everywhere from Maine down to Washington, DC.
3:14
SPEAKER_02: And then I pivoted quickly into running the commercial business once we launched the Saraby brand uh and went live at the retail.
3:22
SPEAKER_02: Uh, because it's had some prior experience in uh in commercial sales uh for a few companies and was able to lend my expertise and thinking about where do we put this thing?
3:31
SPEAKER_02: What's the right uh cadence of promotion, that kind of thing.
3:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh so that was kind of my some of my first early roles within uh Corey Laboratories.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: So you're thinking about starting a skincare brand, because just for the business case, as you said, makes total sense.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: So many pharma companies now want to do the exact same thing.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: I I I talk to a lot of companies all the time who who are trying to jump into the space.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: But at that point, I guess sensitive skincare was really Cetophil, right?
3:56
SPEAKER_01: That's what we had.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if Vana Cream was was around at that point.
4:01
SPEAKER_02: Probably was.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't nearly the size or player that it was today.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:06
SPEAKER_02: I can remember looking at it and thinking this is a potential competitor, certainly early on.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: So you had Cetophil as a competitor, but you guys still thought sensitive skin was the way to go.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: Is that is that because of the other meds that you guys were making at the time?
4:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think one of the secret sauces of the brand is we've always had a good intuition because of the counsel of dermatologists like you, as to where do we fit in the armamentarimate treatment?
4:30
SPEAKER_02: So, Sarah B first and foremost, you know, uh what is our role with any given specific condition?
4:36
SPEAKER_02: Are we to plus up the medication by enhancing the efficacy or perhaps removing uh, you know, taking the patient off of medication sooner and being able to maintain the results?
4:46
SPEAKER_02: Are we, you know, there to uh to uh maybe prohibit the or mitigate the side effects, right, of a lot of medications that that could occur, things like irritation if it's a retinoid, that kind of thing.
4:58
SPEAKER_02: So I think it depended obviously on the condition itself.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: Um but you know, the idea was very much sensitive to kind of the best in class if I think about OTC cleansing and moisturizing back in 2004, around that time period, it was about sensitive skin, or the more occlusive the better, right?
5:17
SPEAKER_02: There was that narrative as well.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can remember wet wraps and even using at times saran wrap if you around uh really bad eczema and that kind of thing.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: I think I think with our approach and working with those early dermatologists, we really wanted to, I would say, take a more offensive, you know, go on offense, more of an offensive approach than a defensive.
5:37
SPEAKER_02: I would say sensitive skin is really defensive.
5:40
SPEAKER_02: Offensive in the sense of using things like ceramides, which you know, the science behind that, yeah, you know, naturally occurring in your body, usually deficient when inflammation is present in the skin.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: A lot of the science started to point to things like ceramides back in the late 90s, early 2000s to help us give a lot of you know confidence and to really compete in a different way versus that sensitive skin route, which certainly Cetophil was the champion of, as well as um, you know, the more occlusive the better.
6:10
SPEAKER_02: And because it started as a pharmaceutical company, uh, Dr.
6:14
SPEAKER_02: Lane, you know about the MVE technology, right?
6:17
SPEAKER_02: So we talked about ceramides and that offensive maybe fix the problem of what's happening in the first place utilizing that type of ingredient.
6:25
SPEAKER_02: But with pharmaceutical companies, as you know, the key is to develop products and ingredients, new chemicals, that kind of thing, but also figuring out where it needs to go to work.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: And that's the discipline of multivascicular emulsion.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: This was a technology that started out very much on the RX side.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: If you remember Salx, cream of motion.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: Really good keratolytic moisturizer with 6% salicylic acid and ammonium lactate, where we were able to, you know, develop this product line and gave great clinical results without the irritation normally found, we're utilizing 6% salicylic acid, for example.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: So you could use this thing on like open fissures and open skin, it was really a darling product.
7:08
SPEAKER_02: It's numbers, Alex.
7:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:10
SPEAKER_02: So MVE started there.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: So when we were counseling with our dermatologists, they said, you know, one way to compete as you're starting from something from scratch and trying to compete against other great brands that are on the market.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: Think about ceramides because it actually replenishes what's deficient, as well as utilizing a technology that you already have in your bag in MBE, because we really love that stuff.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: We know it delivers actives into where it needs to go, but also had a great cosmetic benefit to it.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: And uh, and that was kind of the reasoning behind how we started the brand.
7:45
SPEAKER_02: And if you think about the name Sarah V, yeah, it encompasses both of those early technologies, which really set us apart from competition.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: So Sarah for Ceramides, not Michael Sarah, all right, as much as he'd like to take ownership of it.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: And then VE for the MVE technology.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: Got it.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: So and you were talking about you're talking to to dermatologists.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: When you guys, when you know, with the seed of an idea, did you already start at that point talking to your derm, you know, contacts to see what they want, what they need?
8:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, part of that early development team were really well-known executives within the DERM space.
8:23
SPEAKER_02: Uh and that was their thought was like, you know, if we're going to develop a brand, let's incorporate the collective thoughts of those that know skin the best.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: Now I would say this idea of developing with derms or having your derm board or you know, white coats all over your website, this kind of thing, has kind of become normal.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: Back in the early 2000s, when we started Servibrand, it was safe to say that we took a different approach.
8:49
SPEAKER_02: So, and we still, you know, incorporate that approach today in all product development.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: As you know, you've sat through many ad boards with us on a myriad of topics.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: We like to bring in these subject matter experts, usually two to three years in advance of any innovation, and sit down and get your thoughts in terms of what is this one, is this a general need for dermatology?
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: We look at the competitive environment.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: Is this something that we could develop a, you know, a meaningful innovation against to deliver a different clinical benefit or end result?
9:22
SPEAKER_02: And that process started very much before there was ever a formula.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: And we could say that, you know, think about like you know, Dr.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: Elias's work, for example, on the skin barrier.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Peter Elias.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: The technology in terms of the ability to measure what is happening in the skin, continued to get and you know, continue to improve.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: So we had inside view now into what's happening within skin when you had inflammation present and started comparing that versus healthy skin, etc.
9:49
SPEAKER_02: All of this input helped us to point to uh to the way we developed our formulation to make sure that you know, if you compete on a very crowded market, especially as a new entrant, you better do something different.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, uh and this is a story for any new entrant in any market, I feel like you've got to find where the pain points are for your customer and and meet those and make sure you're you're novel and exciting.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: And what's striking talking with you now, Tom, is I'm realizing you you kind of felt like the customer was the dermatologist, didn't you?
10:20
SPEAKER_01: That that's really where you went to.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, obviously it was it was a way to fuel our team.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: It was, as I mentioned before, we're how do we fit in the bag of the overall therapy, whether we're you know enhancing medicine, like I mentioned before, or just keeping people compliant on medicine, that kind of thing.
10:43
SPEAKER_02: Um absolutely, dermatologists, I would say, is our muse.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: And we figured out because of the influence of derm at the point of care, that it was a great way to start building a business.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: And you mentioned people that are trying to start brands today and stuff.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: I'd say the other thing we really did well and got right is we didn't overextend ourselves.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: And what I mean by that is brand ideation formulation design happened in 2004.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: First launch was in 2005, and we launched with just three items hydrating cleanser, daily moisturizing lotion, and moisturizing cream.
11:19
SPEAKER_02: One size each.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: What happens today is people come out with a what we call pennier or a basket of product with 15 items and then try to go to a retail environment.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: You may be able to get away with that a little bit at like you know, going to an Amazon, for example.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: But the challenge with that is now you're trying to learn to juggle with 15 pins in a year.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: We built these utility products to establish our credibility, to establish ourselves.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: And even if you think about the commercial strategy, like I mentioned before, started this brand just in brick and mortar drug.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: Well, that was music to the ear to the retailer because we're like, you're not going to need to compete against mass players.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: But it also, in that in negotiation, gave us enough time to build this brand without having the risk of being thrown off the shelf.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: So it was really a very methodical approach to to building something to what it is today, you know.
12:15
SPEAKER_02: And like I said before, it just started very humbly.
12:17
SPEAKER_02: That's the bottom line.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, it sounds like a recipe for success, though.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: And and the, you know, your ingredients, Tom, are not cheap, right?
12:26
SPEAKER_01: Those, and especially back then, I would imagine the three essential ceramides were pretty expensive to include in a kind of a mass market product like that.
12:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's just it.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we talked about the technology did improve in terms of your ability to see below the surface of the skin without insulting it, cutting it, that kind of thing through the measurement tools.
12:47
SPEAKER_02: The other thing was, although it still is expensive today, to be truthful, it's one of the most expensive active ingredients that L'Oreal actually acquires across the entire portfolio of brand.
12:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's certainly the economies of scale have come down a little bit.
13:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, that is definitely one of the, I think, contributing factors is that it's a real these ingredients really do make a difference in skin and they do at a cost.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: And honestly, Dr.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: Lane, it's one of the reasons why if you look at our packaging, for example, you know, large sizes, you know, we really take into consideration what is happening collectively to the patient.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: You know, I find it interesting that companies will launch something in eczema and it's 2.5 ounces.
13:31
SPEAKER_02: It's like the usage rate of a moisturizer on somebody that is suffering from active eczema, as you know, you're burning through this stuff.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: So, and that was the counsel of the derm.
13:45
SPEAKER_02: But we talk about the utility of the product packaging, you know, utilizing color schemes, for example, knowing the patient's overwhelmed after you did differential diagnosis, tell them what they have, blow up what they're currently using from a regimen standpoint.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: We want to make it easy.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: And that was the derm set, you know, let's let's make it, you know, you make moisturizers blue, make cleansers green, so we can say, hey, get the green Cera V cleanser in the blue tub.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: By Cera V.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: It made it very easy.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, from you know, from a patient, you know, compliance standpoint, making sure they you know fulfill what you uh what you want from them.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: The other thing is when you're developing products, you got to make a few bets, and there's a few decisions you can make.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: We spend all of our effort, meaning capital, on the actual juice itself and not the packaging.
14:32
SPEAKER_02: There are other brands out there that will have fancy, cute packaging, interesting.
14:36
SPEAKER_02: And that's one way to obviously go about marketing product and developing.
14:42
SPEAKER_02: To me, what we want to do is make sure that the juice was the most impactful because ultimately that's what stays on the skin.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: It's not the package itself.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: That just sits on the shelf.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: There's no doubt the packaging is pretty clinical.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: The label is pretty clinical.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it just it screams out like, hey, that this is to be used and not to be looked at.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, where I feel like some of the skincare creams out there, especially prestige, you know, or professionally dispensed.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: There's back that you wonder how much is going towards the bottle versus I mean it's not a cons, you know, it's not a charism.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: Well, we and honestly, but the most of those products will be more expensive too.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I'm not saying that the juice in those products are less watered down.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: That's not the case.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: It's just like they're charging more money for the complete story.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: For us, we're thinking about the patient and somebody suffering from a chronic skin condition because the way we've got activated from day one and still do today is through the physician recommendations.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: And these are chronic conditions.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: So it's more important for us to offer 16 ounces of a moisturizer for atyper thermatitis than it would be four ounces plus nicer packaging.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: That makes sense.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no, it makes total sense.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: So just walking through this history.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: So so three products were launched, um, you know, really got a foothold in the derm community.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: I remember that for sure.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then I'm sure at some point you guys thought, okay, we need to expand.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: And you you you went condition-based at some point.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: I know there's an acne line, there's obviously psoriasis line and eczema as you talked about.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: What was the first kind of derm condition that you decided to focus on?
16:18
SPEAKER_01: Was it acne?
16:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, where we actually put the disease itself.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: It was probably psoriasis.
16:23
SPEAKER_02: If you remember the psoriasis, the predated acne a little bit.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: But you talked about how do we fit into the armamentarium of treatment, right?
16:32
SPEAKER_02: Products four, five, and six basically all launched around the same time.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
16:38
SPEAKER_02: And that was foaming facial cleanser, Cerevi AM and PM.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: Those three coincided with a product launch of a prescription product called Atrulin.
16:51
SPEAKER_02: You remember that?
16:51
SPEAKER_02: It was a 0.05% stretino and clindamin, you know, had uh fish collagen in it to help drive a little bit more of an efficacy, you know, really a beautiful product developed by Dow Pharma and some of that uh, you know, other great formulation people.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, but we did so it goes again to like, all right, what especially in the early days when we develop product, it's what's the relationship of that to the prescription pad.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: And we saw an opportunity to develop a moisturizing, hydrating, foaming product.
17:21
SPEAKER_02: It removes surface oil, makeup, dirt, all that stuff, prep for atruline or whatever retinoid or combo therapy you want to use after that from a topical standpoint.
17:31
SPEAKER_02: And then going back to the utility of trying to help patients treat their skin and drive a regimen and like reduce or you know, dumb it down, if you will, so everyone can understand how to use these products properly.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: I think we were the first to to like put an AM, for example, and utilize the you know, the PM to really denote morning moisturizer and night moisturizer, right?
17:54
SPEAKER_02: So again, some other brands are utilizing that uh that approach today, and that's fine.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: And I get it, because we're all trying to drive patient compliance, but those kind of products four, five, and six, as we talk about indication dribbin, was absolutely at the same time that we're launching prescription medication to treat that same patient.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: See, I love this for so many reasons, Tom.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh within many pharma companies, there's just no crosstalk between the verticals at all.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: And so pharma will not speak to aesthetic, will not speak to their skincare.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: And and here you you're talking about a real holistic, unified approach where the company looked at, okay, we're we're we're launching Altrino, a retinoid, kind of a moisturizing retinoid, but still a retinoid.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: And I I agree, great product.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, what products in the therapy line can we use around that to mitigate side effects and make it even more amenable to be used on a daily basis where we know we get the best efficacy?
18:50
SPEAKER_01: You just don't see that very much, some.
18:52
SPEAKER_02: It's I mean, I think, yeah, no, thank you for that.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: I think part of that is just small team, small company.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think as you get bigger, it becomes a little bit more difficult to maybe connect the dots cross-functionally.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: I would say beyond a shadow of that, you know, Servi, biggest skincare brand in the US.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: I think it's top five in dermocosmetics around the world now, which is hard for me to fathom, given this kind of how we started.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Right.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: But um we got there one patient at a time through one office at a time, and we still are there today.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: You know, we deployed teams out in the marketplace, we have amazing teams driving the clinical or medical relevance of our products to fit with within your toolbox, your tool bag, right?
19:40
SPEAKER_02: What do you have at your disposal?
19:42
SPEAKER_02: And how can we kind of bookend that with smart cleansing before prescription pad, followed up by whatever moisturizer protecting the skin if it's SVF component, that kind of thing.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: But really, the magic of Cerebee was that it was owned by the right people at the right time, right?
19:58
SPEAKER_02: Started as part of a small pharma company that had the wherewithal and smarts to overinvest, I would say, versus what the OTC PL was giving you.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: So really a long-term vision there at Corey Laboratories.
20:12
SPEAKER_02: So when it was, you know, Corey, its company was sold to Valiant at the time when Valiant like bought, call it the greatest hits of medicine, right?
20:22
SPEAKER_02: They bought Eladal, they had Fudex in the bag, they bought orthodermatologists with Retin-A, like all these amazing products, which helped drive Seraphis medical relevance and equity.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: To finally in 2017, when you have an amazing marketing team and company called, you know, at L'Oreal that acquired the brand to do two things.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: One is help drive more storytelling against the brand in the US to take it to where it is today at number one, but also the fact that they could launch it globally.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Were you, um, Tom, did they did did they keep you on when the brand was acquired by Valiant?
20:57
SPEAKER_01: Were you were you at Valiant?
20:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: So it was, it was just, it just sometimes you just get lucky in your career.
21:03
SPEAKER_02: And like a good example of that is Corey.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: It's it's the you know, the company Corey Laboratory is based in Fort Worth, Texas.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: I lived in New York City, you know, married a Brooklyn girl, and the and the rest is history, right?
21:16
SPEAKER_02: So I was not relocating to Texas and was never going to be on the horizon.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: Well, Valiant's based in like central New Jersey.
21:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: So it's perfect for my career to be able to like, this is great.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: Now I will actually spend some time in the home office because it's only an hour and 20-minute drive, you know, that kind of thing.
21:34
SPEAKER_02: To ultimately, again, luck, acquired by L'Oreal, which headquartered in Manhattan.
21:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, so it really worked out well for me career wise to be connected with this brand for for as long as I have.
21:46
SPEAKER_02: And I'm going on, you know, with my prior company experience, this is 27 years in Durham.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: Jeez, amazing.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned something that I think we just need to highlight that the addition of AM and PM in the name in the bottle.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Tom, it was genius.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: And I know it seems so small, but when you are recommending these products to patients and you're, you know, I write down a regimen, AM and PM regimen.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is what I want you to use the cleanser.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: And often it's a different cleanser in the morning at night because I've got different RXs that they're using.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: Just the fact that I can say, hey, grab your Steravy AM and your Ster V PM, and and they'll know the Steravy AM is brilliant because it has SPF, the PM has niacinema.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: Like there's so many aspects to it that are great, but just the pure name was a brilliant play.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: It it just made it so much easier for Derms to recommend.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, really, really smart.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: There's a great marketer's name's Trey Schutz.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: I know for you, I'm sure you meant Trey.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: Trey was uh amazing marketer for OTC skincare, and he was the one that really, I think, was the champion behind working with derms to try to drive this stuff.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think again, it going back to the testament why the brand is successful.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: So I think very early on, we got the fact that there's no margin for error when it comes to developing something for the exam room.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: The collective journey before they get to see you in clinic is they've already self-treated.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: They've tried to figure it out through Dr.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: Google.
23:11
SPEAKER_02: Their friends and family have weighed in and given their potions and everything else, yet nothing's mitigated, right?
23:18
SPEAKER_02: Right.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: Usually derm, especially when the conditions that we go against are very much uh it's reactive medicine.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: It's like you you break out, then you go see a derm.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: It's not wealth check visit and that stuff, unless you're skin cancer prone and stuff, and you get your annual, you know, exam exam and stuff like that.
23:35
SPEAKER_02: So, with that said, when you're exam, you know, when you're developing clinical skincare for the exam room, you have to get it right.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: And part of that is yes, the formula and all the work that takes place there.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: But if no one's going to use the product because it's too confusing, etc., then it's you just it's the same old problem that you have with your patients, is which is compliance, right?
23:58
SPEAKER_02: Getting people to use the medications hard enough.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: We wanted to make it as easy as possible when it came to OTC skincare.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: So just that the company is maturing, you're developing new products, and Valiant comes along.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: Was it the right time to sell because you needed you wanted some more capital, you needed more dry powder to grow the brand, or was it maybe for Coreia?
24:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think the parent company DFB saw it as a great opportunity.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: And Valiant, if you remember, we were their first acquisition in dermatology.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: So what they got with the acquisition of Coreia was a full team.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: So not only did they buy the products, but they brought the whole the whole sales team, like everything was part of that asset purchase agreement.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: So now they had kind of like we were winning, obviously, at Coreia Laboratories.
24:45
SPEAKER_02: We had a national team.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: It provided the opportunity for then Valiant to go on that acquisition spree and have a team to be able to carry out those acquisitions and grow.
24:57
SPEAKER_02: And Valiant also understood the importance of diversification of portfolio.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: So they also, once again, invested back into our OTC Ply pipeline.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: And if you think about Valiant, like again, it was owned by the right people at the right time.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: And what that means is a few things.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: One is level investment, but also access to talent.
25:17
SPEAKER_02: Valiant acquired Balchin Laam.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: Balchin Laam had amazing commercial success.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the leaders within iCare for Saline, for you know, contact lens, all this incredible stuff.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: So at Valiant, then we got to work with those colleagues that really knew retail super well.
25:36
SPEAKER_02: And at that moment, we expanded to, you know, Walmart and Target, Costco, and some of these other great brick and mortar retailers and Amazon, which started to come online, you know, around 2010, I would say, when it started really getting serious, you know.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: Um, it was also part of the magic uh was you know, going to a valiant, not only because of the acquisitions and the medical relevancy of the prescription products and how it helped propped up Cera V, but also the access of talent because of what was in the bag, you know, deeper leverage with the retailer because now we're in multiple parts of the store with the same company, with iCare dominant as the category captain, and now you have a great brand in skincare and stuff like that.
26:17
SPEAKER_02: And then ultimately the biggest game changer was obviously in 2017 when when L'Oreal acquired Cera V.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
26:24
SPEAKER_02: And what I love this company from the standpoint of like there's so many incredible smart people here that are great storytellers, that are great marketers, that are, you know, the willingness for L'Oreal to invest in the brand, the ability to carry it out globally is unprecedented.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: Meaning, I think the ink dried on the deal on March of 2017.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: And by March of 2018, it's in 35 countries around the world.
26:52
SPEAKER_02: Like that just doesn't happen.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: There's one company that can do that.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: L'Oreal.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Executed on a vision very quickly.
26:57
SPEAKER_02: On A, like flawlessly, right?
26:59
SPEAKER_02: And what is cool about L'Oreal as being, you know, someone that's been with a brand since the beginning is the fact that they get the DNA.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: They don't ask you to be somebody that you're not.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: They respect the development, the process of develop with dermatologists, you know, that kind of thing.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: And we still carry that out today, which is why it's been just a beautiful partnership marriage, uh, and they've taken it, no, no doubt, uh, to the next level.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of derms were concerned when L'Oreal took over because La Roche Possay was there.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, talking about sensitive skin, obviously at a higher price point, different, different storyline, but still in the sensitive skin segment.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: And how are they going to differentiate the two brands?
27:43
SPEAKER_01: But I think that has played out beautifully as well, where La Roche Posey is flourishing right alongside its sister brand Cera V.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, it came very the truth is I think we all worked on that collectively, and maybe there was always apprehension, especially me.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: I came from Cera V and the La Roche Bosset people.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: It was we we had to work on that a little bit.
28:02
SPEAKER_02: But what we quickly, quickly realized is that you, as a clinician, want options.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: The alternative could be we're competing against each other, which is no good.
28:12
SPEAKER_02: So therefore, and we're we're quite proud about what both products are able to deliver to the market and they do it in a differentiated way.
28:19
SPEAKER_02: So it's we're stronger together.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: And it enabled us to uh, you know, to very much so in the US to help LaRoche Prosset now reach more DERMS than ever before because we were a national team.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: They I think they have maybe 20 plus reps.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: Now, now we have a lot, you know, a lot of sales teams, uh skin health advisors out in the marketplace.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: And there's no doubt that that partnership, we're we're leveraging and working together to develop the very best product to help patients.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: And and we both, I think, have the same mission, which is how do we help you help others, right?
28:55
SPEAKER_02: That's the bottom line.
28:56
unknown: Yeah.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: And it's worked out beautifully.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: I think just one other point on that.
28:59
SPEAKER_02: What I'm probably most proud of in my new role, I have both I have Servi, Laurel Spousset, Dirt Ghost now, which is a hair care brand that you're familiar with, all three brands underneath, and I manage everything that has to do with physicians.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: So field sales teams, medical relations, professional marketing, communication, uh, integrated health.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: So pharmacy, I know you've you're familiar with the dermatology and retail alliance, that kind of stuff.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: All four of those uh reports me.
29:25
SPEAKER_02: I think what I'm most proud of for my team is that we've been able to grow both brands at not at the expense of each other.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, our share of recommendation on CERV is still the number one recommended brand.
29:37
SPEAKER_02: And La Roche-Bossey has just become number three, well, on its way to number two, without losing any any steam on Cere V.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: So it's been it's been a great partnership.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: It's been incredible.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, really almost like a Harvard business case type of incredible in terms of how both both brands have been able to flourish under one parent company.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, um, Tom, look, I've I've got so much respect for you and what you've done, so much respect for the company, as you know.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: I I enjoy working with you so much.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: As you think about, you know, young Derms or or Derms in general who want to start their own brand, or if there's someone listening to us who wants to start a brand, what would you say kind of tier three pointers for them as they kind of start, you know, they've got a piece of white paper in front of them, they're starting to write down their ideas.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: What would you say are the three kind of foundational ideas that that really helped you start Cerevi and could help somebody else start a brand?
30:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think for me, it would be just steal, you know, if you're going to steal from the Cerevi playbook, it would be very much don't overextend yourself in the beginning.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: Meaning that whole like juggling 12 pins at one time, you know, analogy is really difficult.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: When to really what your first foray with the new brand and the first few products that you launch, they have to be differentiated and like quickly deliver a different clinical benefit than what is this, what is the category norm.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: And that's what's hard.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: Really hard.
31:01
SPEAKER_02: Especially, you know, stratum corneum is as thin as a sheet of paper.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
31:04
SPEAKER_02: So it's like, how much are we getting?
31:07
SPEAKER_02: And you can't in, you know, you can't change structure and function of skin or you're a drug, it becomes yeah, that is that is the difficult part.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: And the third is like clear line of sight as to how you're going to be able to sell or communicate that differentiation.
31:21
SPEAKER_02: So for the consumer, they understand it.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the good news is everybody's got a smartphone, so everyone's attempting to get there.
31:28
SPEAKER_02: And two, if it, you know, if it is activating against an influencer, whether it's a lifestyle or physician, which has, you know, um, you have to bring the right level of detail to that relationship and and and uh and deliver and surprise and delight the ultimate person that those influencers are trying to you know provide or put your product out there because it's their brands on the line too.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: You know, like we always would try to tell our teams like add look, you know, first and foremost, add value where you can.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: And add value looks a lot differently depending on the situation.
32:04
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes adding value to a physician's office is recognizing that they're behind, that they're in the weeds and not taking up their time and walking out the door and saying, I'll catch you next time, you know, that kind of thing.
32:16
SPEAKER_02: Adding value a lot of times is bringing product and samples and fulfilling the sample closet and all the other stuff.
32:22
SPEAKER_02: So I think that recommendation piece of it is uh you have to add value to like who who are going to be your stakeholders.
32:29
SPEAKER_02: If it's a retailer, are you giving them a margin that may be a little bit sweeter than what the category norm is?
32:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, these kind of things I think are all things to take into consideration before you launch something.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: And then it's always interesting.
32:42
SPEAKER_02: Like I do think there's been a lot of people that are interested in our success across Sarah V and Larissa Roset.
32:47
SPEAKER_02: They want what we have, but I think it's that old adage, which is like people want what you have, but they don't want to do the work, the time, or the investment to get what you how you got there.
32:56
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
32:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:58
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like the product, like it's like I said, it's 20 plus years for Sarah V.
33:02
SPEAKER_02: This is what you see today is 20 years of work.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: Well, and in every Durham office, you're at almost every DERM uh meeting, uh, or you or or someone from Sarah V is at every DEM meeting, making the relationships, pushing the brand, talking about new ideas, having advisory boards with DRMs where they bring the science people and formulators and talk about, as you mentioned, products in the incipient stages.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: It's just you stay true to the to the ethos of the brand, develop with dermatologists, meeting them where they need you.
33:37
SPEAKER_01: Um and there's a charter, right?
33:39
SPEAKER_01: We haven't even talked about the charter underlying all the products, um, which you're true to as well.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: So when I think about you know having a heritage and a true foundation, Sarah V did that from day one and continues to be true to it.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: And I and I think just from the outside in, that that is part of the success as well.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:00
SPEAKER_02: No, thank you.
34:00
SPEAKER_02: And and it's certainly uh I've been again pleased that that the fact that obviously like at a lower yell we'll be able to keep that that DNA intact.
34:07
SPEAKER_02: It's definitely our secret sauce.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: But going back to what I already talked about, really we're talking about patients that are sick, they have a disease, they have chronic conditions, and we need to get that product built for that moment.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:22
SPEAKER_02: And if we're able to do that, there's no better relationship you can enter in with a consumer than when they need you the most.
34:29
SPEAKER_02: And if you're part of their solve, that's what drives brand love, propensity to repeat purchase or try even new products within your brand.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: And we rode this great tailwind of being there for that patient when they needed us the most.
34:46
SPEAKER_02: We're part of delivering a great clinical benefit at the same time that everyone now has a voice because of smart social media and the willingness and wantingness to to put it out there to their friends and family.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: And that flywheel is uh, you know, very much a beautiful thing and one that you you can only get if you if you have it right for the exam room, you know, itself.
35:08
SPEAKER_01: There's nowhere to hide anymore, is there?
35:10
SPEAKER_01: No, no, yeah, no, good and bad, right?
35:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, Tom, thank you so much.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: It's already been 30 minutes.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: I can't believe it.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: I love these conversations um and the opportunity.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, listen, we'll do it again.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's so much more for us to talk about.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, we certainly talk a ton about the science on this podcast, but I love to talk about the business sometimes, especially if I uh, you know, the origin story and and and kind of how you got to where you are today.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: And I know it's not just you too, I know there's a lot of people behind it, but but certainly your very hard work over the last 20 plus years is is a huge part of why the brand is a success.
35:45
SPEAKER_01: So um congrats to you and the brand.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: I I'm certainly so excited to continue working with you guys and seeing all the amazing things that you bring to the market for our patients.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: Um so this is a Science of Skin podcast, everybody.
35:57
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: Listen, our growth has really come through word of mouth.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: So if you enjoy this episode, please tell a colleague, a friend.
36:04
SPEAKER_01: Of course, we'd love you to subscribe and give us a five star rating.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: But the biggest thing is tell other people about what we're trying to do here.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: We really appreciate it.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: Tom, thank you again for being on, and I'm sure I'll see you soon.
36:15
SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much, Dr.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: Lynn, for the opportunity.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate it.