O Brazil registered more than 920 thousand cases ofand dengue in the first two months of this year, saccording to Dashboard Monitoring of Arboviruses, of the Ministry of Health. The Campinas region, in turn, is responsible for 9 thousand of the cases accounted for in national territory. In this scenario, there are some measures taken to mitigate the impact of infection, like the vaccine, recently made available and restricted to some audiences, and personal actions to contain the disease.
Among individual measures, it is possible to mention the use of some insect repellent, a product that prevents the issuance of odors responsible for attracting mosquitoes Aedes Aegypti, vector of the disease. O repellent currently developed by the company S Cosméticos do Bem is an example of product which, when approved, will add aefforts to combat dengue.
This is because S Cosméticos, daughter company from Unicamp graduated from the Technology-Based Business Incubator of Unicamp (Incamp), has been looking for ways to expand protection against mosquitoes also for audiences sensitive to this type of product. In the testing phase, the repellent obtained from the plant Anniversary Artemisia and with technology from the Faculty of Food Engineering (FEA) from Unicamp, licensed by the company, It has recently undergone an improvement using nanotechnology, in order to increase its durability and effectiveness.
In addition to the low toxicity, estimated to be five times lower than that of the least toxic component on the market, it can be used by managementbefore and children, the lotion will have moisturizing properties. Soraya El Khatib, founder and executive director (CEO) of the company and former Unicamp student, expects the product to be made available shortly:
"Our expectation is that the repellent is on the market this year and can begin to deliver safety, health, well-being and prevention, especially against dengue fever, the Zika virus and chikungunya in the case of special groups such as children and pregnant women”, comments the CEO.
S Cosméticos do Bem, gIncamp rate
Although I bet on the new rrepellant with enthusiasm, the trajectory of S Cosméticos do Bem began years ago and has already resulted in the presentation of a product to the market, a facial serum with anti-aging action. E there are other products in development and in the testing phase.
Despite their different purposes, all these products have the same starting point in common, the plant Anniversary Artemisia, and the application of sustainable methods in its production, tousing technology developed at FEA.
The component used by the company to create the products is artemisinin, which comes from a plant native to Asia. The essential oil obtained from the species has commercial interest due to its cosmetic and pharmaceutical properties. For three of the bioactives generated by the plant, varied applications were found, such as repellent, anti-aging, antimalarial and antiviral products.
The bioactives were obtained under the guidance of professor Maria Angela de Almeida Meireles Petenate, from FEA, e does not use polluting solvents. In practice, the procedure uses only water and carbon dioxide reused from industrial processes. Sustainability indicators also show that, during all extraction stages, there is a small emission of carbon dioxide, estimated at just 2%.
The path from the product to the consumer market
Cosméticos do Bem is configured as a spin off acUnicamp academic, that is, a company created based on research developed at the University to enable the application of new technology in products that reach the consumer market. Since its founding, the company has gone through several stages of development, including the incubation process offered by Incamp, managed by the Unicamp Innovation Agency (Innovates Unicamp).
During this period, the startup received various types of funding, like odthe Innovative Research in Small Businesses Program of the São Paulo State Research Support Foundation (pipe Fapesp), or from Financier of Studies and Projects (Finep) and the Brazilian Support Service for Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae).
Incamp and Inova Unicamp’s activities
Incamp, through its incubation program, promotes actions that seek to collaborate with the development of startups selected, as was the case with S Cosméticos do Bem. Companies interested in the programs offered can obtain more information about registration and the current notice in the website.
To find out more about the Unicamp's daughter companies and registration and data update processes, access.
