DAYTON, N.J.--After a few months of discussion, Phytomedics Inc. announced its newly signed partnership with Henkel KgaA to develop botanical ingredients for the cosmetic/cosmeceutical industries. The partnership is a pilot program for the companies at this point and will focus on producing therapeutic ingredients in the skin health arena. Phytomedics is not releasing information about the specific research projects at this time.

"[Henkel is] one of the largest companies in the world involved in this particular area of skin care and chemistry and they have a lot of proprietary screening tools for a variety of cosmetic applications," said Ira Pastor, executive vice president of Phytomedics Inc. "We have a set of technologies to generate plant-based natural products. Together we hope to develop some interesting products. We complement each other very nicely."

Phytomedics (www.phytomedics.com) is a life sciences company that develops plant-based technologies for use in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, and now, cosmetic/cosmeceutical industries. Ilya Raskin, Ph.D., a founder and chairman of Phytomedics, leads the company's R&D efforts from the Biotech Center of Rutgers University. Phytomedics has a broad research and licensing agreement with Rutgers University that allows the company to exclusively license its core technologies and products.