These Technology-Driven Companies Are Shaking Up The Beauty And Healthcare Industry

Healthcare and beauty are two aspects of humans that can be said to be as old as the world itself. When you are healthy and bubbling with life, you have every tendency to be successful. On the other hand, if you present yourself in a way that is untidy and unkempt, you’ll no doubt give off the impression that you are perhaps irresponsible. The beautiful you, the healthy you, is the ticket you need to open doors to opportunities.

This has made healthcare and beauty command the attention of everybody. Happenings and innovations in the industry are taken very seriously especially in the area of product personalization. That is the reason you should care to know about these technology-driven companies that are blazing the trail in the healthcare and beauty industry.

1. Thryve

Thryve COURTESY OF Thryve

Thryve, which was co-founded by Richard Lin in 2016, has set out on the mission to empower you to take charge of your gut health so you can feel your greatest. Richard Lin, who is also CEO, was prompted by personal experience.

This was how he put it: “About two years ago I took antibiotics for a common cold, this resulted in being hospitalized due to major gut infection. I had lost control of my health and that’s when I knew something had to change. I started reading everything I could about gut health. In my search for a solution, I was left with more questions than answers. I started Thryve to find the answers to better gut health. I hope you’ll join me on my journey.”

The brand’s product which includes a microbiome DNA test, digital app (health report, customized food plan), and personalized probiotics is the world’s first customized solution to target gut health. For a far-reaching effect, the team utilized artificial intelligence (natural language processing and machine learning) in order to summarize 50,000+ research articles on the microbiome to make the science accessible and easy-to-understand. 

Thryve was able to achieve this feat with the help of the brand’s scientific advisory board from reputable institutions such as MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Purdue, and UC Davis. Thryve has raised from prominent investors such as Unilever Ventures, PivotNorth Capital, TrailMix Ventures, Darling Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, Unpopular Ventures, Joyance Partners, Social Starts, Shanda Group, Pharmapacks, and Bioverge. 

2. PROVEN

PROVEN COURTESY OF PROVEN

PROVEN, co-founded by Ming Zhao and Dr. Amy Yuan, is the first company to combine AI, big data, and personalization to end the cycle of trial-and-error in skincare. They built the award-winning Skin Genome Project, the world’s largest beauty database; it uses the power of artificial intelligence to analyze over 20 million consumer testimonials and 4,000 skin-related scientific papers. From there, PROVEN worked with Stanford dermatologists and scientists to create the perfect, AI-powered skincare system for you. 

The reason for the personalization of skincare, according to Ming Zhao, is if you ask 100 dermatologists, 99 of them will tell you that our skin (being our body’s largest organ) requires individualized care based on its inherent factors as well as external factors such as environment and lifestyle. So in order to really solve an individual’s skincare problems, you must have an in-depth knowledge of the individual. In Zhao’s case, generic, one-size-fits-all products on the market didn’t work for her, and this prompted Zhao to find her own particular solution. 

Based on a three-minute Skin Genome Quiz, PROVEN is able to gather and analyze 47 factors about you, including your gene expression, lifestyle, environment, and skin goals. Then, they formulate those products, and you receive a personalized skincare routine that’s perfect for you in the mail.

PROVEN’s Skin Genome ProjectTM has been recognized by leading technology and AI authorities including winning MIT’s AI Technology of the Year Award, as well as winning Nvidia’s Deep Technology Inception Award for its sophistication as well as for the innovative application of AI and Data into a tech-neglected consumer sector. 

3. Effaclar Spotscan

Spotscan COURTESY OF Spotscan

Having discovered that consumers in China refrain from buying cosmeceuticals because they don’t know if the products are suitable for their skin, L’Oréal’s La Roche-Posay brand, together with Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group came up with the Effaclar Spotscan. The product is touted to be the world’s first artificial intelligence-powered mobile acne testing application.

The innovation ensures that consumers who previously had to go to stores for skin testing services can now do so from the comfort of their homes with the use of their mobile apps. This also removes the need and financial constraints involved in visiting dermatologists to carry out skin assessment.

Effaclar spotscan, which made its first appearance on Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao e-commerce apps, is based on dermatology research by La Roche-Posay and powered by Alibaba’s machine-learning technologies. From your selfies, your type of acne lesions can be analyzed by the app. 

The brand said that in order to ensure they had the right thing, it became necessary to use thousands of images of both men and women with different skin types and acne lesions in training the model.

Privacy concerns

Looking at these companies it’s evident that a lot of work has been done in the area of innovation that is dependent on data. It’s not an easy task to personalize a lot of these processes we have seen so far in the healthcare and beauty industry.

What comes to mind is how the brands will be able to properly secure these mammoth proportions of personal information at their disposal. If you also take into consideration that an estimate of between 41.6 and 64 billion IoT devices are expected to be deployed worldwide by 2025 in the healthcare industry, it dawns on you clearly that with each “smart” device being a potential vector to attack and exploit a company’s network, you may be in grave danger.

Cybercriminals are always lurking and working assiduously behind the scene with the intention of laying hands on people’s personal information. No brand wants to jeopardize your privacy and safety so extreme care still needs to be taken to ensure that the brands, as well as individuals, are not unwittingly exposing their customers to breaches and cyberattacks.

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