Woori Green Science announced on the 17th that it has signed a technology transfer agreement with the Korea Food Research Institute for the development of individually recognized functional material ingredients.
The technology is for a "composition for promoting hair growth, stimulating hair growth, improving, preventing, and treating hair loss containing Echium plantagineum extract as an active ingredient." It includes the excellent hair health efficacy of Echium plantagineum extract and is a result achieved with support from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's research project.
Woori Green Science, a subsidiary of Woori Bio, is a specialized company in functional ingredients for food and pharmaceuticals based on smart farms. It conducts research on cultivation methods of various medicinal plants in plant factories and smart farm greenhouses. Recently, it has also been conducting plant cell culture research to obtain functional useful substances by mass culturing plant cells in bioreactors.
Jung Chang-hwa, principal researcher at the Korea Food Research Institute who led the technology development, conducted experiments promoting the growth of human dermal papilla cells and outer root sheath cells from hundreds of natural extracts and identified Echium plantagineum as having the most excellent efficacy. Animal experiments confirmed the superior effects of Echium plantagineum extract in promoting hair growth and inhibiting hair loss.
The Korea Food Research Institute demonstrated through dermal papilla cell and animal experiments that Echium plantagineum extract regulates hair follicle formation and growth cycles by activating β-catenin signaling, and filed a patent in 2022.
According to human application test results based on the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety guidelines, Echium plantagineum extract supplied through mass cultivation by Woori Green Science showed improvements of 4?12% in hair gloss, elasticity, and thickness, respectively.
The technology transfer agreement was signed with the help of the National Science and Technology Research Council (NST) affiliated research institute’s commercialization joint promotion task force. Both parties agreed to mutually cooperate in technology support and joint development for the development of individually recognized functional food ingredients.
Yoon Ji-yong, CEO of Woori Green Science, said, “Hair loss is not a life-threatening disease, but it causes psychological distress in all aspects of life such as employment and marriage. Through this technology transfer with the Korea Food Research Institute, we will lay the foundation for new material development and accelerate follow-up research and development for registration of individually recognized ingredients.”
Baek Hyung-hee, director of the Korea Food Research Institute, stated, “We will contribute to the development of the domestic functional food industry and the promotion of public health by spreading the institute’s excellent technology to the private sector. We will also make further efforts to discover the excellent functionalities of native plants in Korea.”
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