12/22/06

A new antiaging ingredient developed by Australian researchers is expected to be available in skin products in 2007.

The additive, gamma-glutamyl cysteine (GGC), a precursor to the antioxidant glutathione, has a variety of health benefits. Glutathione is the body’s key defense for detoxifying harmful compounds implicated in cancer, diabetes, and aging.

After 9 years of development, researchers Wallace Bridge, PhD, and Martin Zarka, PhD, of the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia) have established a cost-efficient process for manufacturing GGC.

The process has been licensed to the pharmaceutical company Biospecialties Australia. A manufacturing plant at Newcastle, New South Wales, will produce GGC. The company received an Australian Government “Commercial Ready” grant of $1.1 million earlier this year to assist in bringing GGC to the market.

It is expected that GGC will be used as an active ingredient in foods, health care, toothpastes, dietary supplements, and cosmetics, as well as in skin-repair antiaging creams. GGC will only be available in dilute concentrations.

[www.medicalnewstoday.com, December 19, 2006]