Getting glutathione into the blood is not the same as getting glutathione into the cell

Skin Beyond Borders announced its audited skincare marketplace in August. What industry gap are you trying to address?

My experience in the industry spans around 20 years. I formally started working in dermatology in 2009, although before that I was in formulation development and clinical research. In 2009 I started Adroit Digital Ideas, a medical marketing company, doing product-launch support, technical brochures, training decks and product-information material for doctors, for clients including GSK, Abbott, Ranbaxy and Clariant. 

Over time we realised that model could not be scaled. We also had an opportunity around a drug for skin cancer, which moved us into dermatology marketing. In 2011, Adroit Digital Ideas became Adroit Biomed. My background has always been on the science side — formulation development and clinical research but dermatology is also a dynamic and creative industry. Every day something new emerges.

 should say where that ended, because it is relevant to why I am doing this now. We sold Adroit Biomed to Alkem Laboratories in April last year

We were involved in introducing concepts such as 20 per cent vitamin C topical gel and 1 gram vitamin C effervescent in India in 2012. One of those, Enerc 1000, went on to become the third largest vitamin C brand in India on ORG data in 2015. We were also among the early companies working with glutathione in the dermatology space. At that time many doctors were not familiar with glutathione, because it was not extensively covered in their academic training.

That experience showed us how much happens after a person starts using a product. We had both doctor and direct channels, so we heard from very different users. Some reported significant changes. Others said they had seen nothing after months. That made us look more closely at the science behind efficacy and individual response.

You have worked extensively with glutathione. What does the science say about absorption and efficacy?

One of the fundamental challenges with glutathione is absorption. It has been known for some time that oral glutathione is poorly absorbed, which is one reason different delivery systems, including liposomal formulations, have been explored. Intravenous administration is considered different because it delivers the ingredient directly into the bloodstream.

However, getting glutathione into the blood is not the same as getting glutathione into the cell. Glutathione does not enter the cell intact, and the reason is not its size — it is a small molecule. It stays out because it is electrically charged and highly water-soluble, so it does not readily cross a lipid membrane, and because no import route for intact glutathione operates at a meaningful rate in most mammalian cells. The dominant route is breakdown at the cell surface. The fragments are taken in separately and used to build glutathione again inside.

There is a second factor: the enzyme glutamate-cysteine ligase, or GCL. It runs the first step of glutathione synthesis and is the rate-limiting one. Its activity and expression decline with age and can be affected by chronic conditions and higher levels of inflammation. 

There is also a control mechanism I think the category has paid too little attention to. GCL is inhibited by glutathione itself — as glutathione accumulates, the enzyme slows down.

So if the cell has sufficient GCL but lacks raw materials, supplying those building blocks may help. But if GCL activity itself is low, simply supplying more glutathione or its precursors may not produce the increase people expect.

Does that mean higher doses are more effective, particularly as a person ages?

Not necessarily. If only a proportion of oral glutathione is absorbed, increasing the dose may increase what reaches the bloodstream. But that does not automatically mean more glutathione enters the cell.

The bigger question is what is happening inside the cell. Someone may have adequate GCL activity but insufficient amino-acid availability, and in that situation providing the raw materials could support production. If GCL activity is inadequate, increasing the supply of raw materials may not have the same effect. That can partly explain why people respond differently to glutathione supplementation.

Where does gamma-glutamylcysteine fit, and what is your interest in it?Let me put the commercial position first. We retail Continual-G, a gamma-glutamylcysteine supplement, on our platform. So I have an interest here, and it is better that I say so than that somebody else points it out.

Gamma-glutamylcysteine, or GGC, is one step before glutathione in the cellular biosynthesis pathway — the same pathway, one piece short of finished. The proposition is that GGC is absorbed, enters the cell, and joins the pathway after the first step, so the rate-limiting enzyme is not the constraint.

Two qualifications belong with that. The uptake mechanism has not been established — the published work says so directly. And GGC is also cleaved at the cell surface by the same enzyme that cleaves glutathione; a 2022 study found it handles GGC comparably. So what can reasonably be claimed is that uptake outruns breakdown, not that GGC avoids breakdown. 

And the human evidence?

There is one published pharmacokinetic trial, and I would rather describe it accurately than favourably, because anybody can read it.

Zarka and Bridge, Redox Biology, 2017. A single 2 gram oral dose raised glutathione inside lymphocytes by 53 per cent within 90 minutes, peaking at around three hours and returning close to baseline by five.

The caveats matter. Fourteen trials in thirteen participants. Doses of 2 grams and 4 grams. Individual responses ranged from 10 to 161 per cent, so 53 is an average across a very wide spread. There was no placebo control — placebo capsules were used only to match capsule count between the two doses. The pharmacokinetic arm had six people; one withdrew during the study and one 4 gram dataset was excluded, so five carry the 2 gram data and four the 4 gram. And the authors hold the manufacturing patents.

It is a pilot study and should be called one. I would add two things. There is no head-to-head trial of oral glutathione against GGC — the comparison is drawn across separate studies with different designs, and it should be labelled that way. And the dose studied is not the dose sold: the trial used 2 and 4 grams, and the product is 400 milligrams. A 400 milligram study is registered in India, sponsored by the manufacturer, and has not yet begun recruiting.

That is where the evidence currently stands.

Glutathione injections have attracted attention for skin brightening. What are the safety considerations?

There is an important distinction between glutathione’s use for established medical indications and its off-label use for skin brightening. Glutathione is naturally present in the body and is an important antioxidant. It is also used in medical settings for certain conditions.

When physiologically unusual amounts are administered, there can be effects on the body’s redox balance. Some patients report symptoms such as tingling. There is also the possibility of hypersensitivity or other adverse reactions.

For skin lightening specifically, the regulatory position is clearer than the market appears to assume. The Philippines FDA attributes to injectable glutathione used this way toxic effects on the liver, kidneys and nervous system, the possibility of Stevens-Johnson syndrome, and — where it is given by a non-medical practitioner in a non-sterile facility — transmission of infectious agents including HIV and hepatitis B and C. Its advisory also states there are no published clinical trials evaluating injectable glutathione for skin lightening, and no published guidelines for dosing or duration.

 In India, CDSCO issued a public notice on 18 May this year clarifying that injectable preparations do not fall within the definition of a cosmetic, and that no cosmetic may be administered by injection — by consumers, professionals or aesthetic clinics. Trade coverage has read glutathione drips as falling within its scope. Enforcement is uneven, though, and a range of other intravenous products continue with very little oversight.

The larger issue, in my view, is not the molecule. It is who is administering it, and in what setting.

A qualified medical professional takes an appropriate history, understands the protocol, is trained to manage an adverse event, and has the infrastructure to respond if something goes wrong. There are instances where procedures are offered in inappropriate settings without adequate medical support — people may book hotel rooms, bring clients in, and conduct procedures without the necessary emergency infrastructure. That is a serious concern. 

Glutathione is not an alien substance to the human body, but that does not mean its administration is risk-free.

You have spoken about the need for indigenous innovation in skincare. What prompted that?

In 2017 I was at a cosmetics exhibition in Paris. We were using a cinnamon extract supplied from France, for acne and oily skin. At the supplier’s stall, the product manager told me they were buying the raw material from India, processing it into an extract in France, and selling that extract back to India.

I knew this at some level already. Hearing it said out loud made me look at the larger pattern.

India has a strong pharmaceutical industry, a large scientific talent pool and significant IT capability. Yet in cosmetics and skincare we have historically been more dependent on imported active ingredients and technologies. At Adroit, most of our active ingredients were imported. We would talk about an active coming from Japan, Korea or the US, because that was how the market operated.

Alongside that there was a perception that products associated with international brands were inherently better. That mindset persists, even though there are several good products being developed in India now.

The same issue now extends to technology. Many of the facial-scanning technologies being integrated into skincare platforms originate outside India. Indian brands pay licence fees to use them, while the systems may also learn from data generated by Indian users, depending on the terms of the licence.

That is a strange equation. We are paying for the technology and, in the process, providing the data that helps improve it.

I should be straightforward that we are building a facial scanner ourselves and we collect user data, so I am not standing outside this. The question I care about is who collects more. It is where the data sits and who it ultimately benefits. 

India has the IT capability. We have one of the world’s largest pools of dermatologists. We have the scientific and clinical ecosystem. Data and technical capabilities are not necessarily scarce. What has been missing is the initiative to bring these capabilities together and build the technology here.

That is the gap I wanted to address.

Is the larger objective to make India a centre for skincare innovation?

Yes. My objective is to see India become a centre of innovation for the world in skincare by 2035. Skin Beyond Borders is the first step in that direction.

I don’t see it simply as a skincare brand. It is a platform, which means it can work with brands, ingredient suppliers, manufacturers, researchers and other stakeholders in India and internationally.

One of the components we have developed is the Skin Friendliness Index, or SFI, which is a composite score developed by us. I would not call it clinically validated at this stage, because we do not yet have sufficient data to substantiate it. That is precisely why data generation matters.

We are also working with a research group in Brazil that studies similar areas and has published in this field. We see scope for exchanging data and developing a more robust scoring mechanism over the next two to three years.

How is Skin Beyond Borders different from a conventional beauty marketplace?

I would start by saying we do not see a platform like Nykaa as a competitor. It is a different category of business. A marketplace of that kind is built to help someone reach a purchasing decision, and it does that job well. Our role begins after the purchase, when the person actually starts using the product.

SkinBB is a collaborative platform and an audited marketplace, and what we intend to build on top of that is a predictive intelligence layer for the industry. 

The starting point is understanding what happens over time. Does the user continue with the product or switch? What changes are taking place in the skin? How consistently is the routine actually followed?

We are developing a facial-scanning capability, and alongside it a daily-log feature through which users can take selfies and track changes over time. After 14 days, the system should be able to show how the skin looked on day one against day 14, with quantitative comparisons across different parameters.

The idea is to link those changes with the user’s routine — which products, adherence to them, environmental conditions, outdoor activity, food, and other parameters they choose to log.

Collected consistently and at scale, that record is what makes prediction possible — for the individual, and for an industry that has had very little visibility into how its products behave in real use. That is the objective, rather than simply recommending a product. 

For a data-driven platform, getting users to engage consistently is difficult. How are you approaching it?

That is probably one of the biggest challenges. Getting users to log in every day and consistently provide data is difficult.

At present the platform is free. We are not funded currently, and every aspect of operating it has a cost, so we will eventually have to determine a sustainable model. We are considering a subscription, but we first want to understand how users actually use the platform, what their behaviour looks like, and what the average cost of serving a user is.

For the first few months our focus is therefore usage and data generation rather than monetisation. I don’t want to ask users to pay significant amounts and, at the same time, expect them to continuously provide data.

Selfies and daily skin logs put you squarely inside India’s data protection regime. How are you approaching that?

We treat it as a design constraint rather than a compliance exercise bolted on afterwards. With this kind of data you cannot retrofit it.

The DPDP Act makes a platform like ours a data fiduciary. The Rules were notified in November 2025 and set an eighteen-month transition running to May 2027, so although enforcement is still in its early phase, the obligations are already known. For us the binding ones are the ordinary ones — notice, purpose limitation, consent that is specific and can be withdrawn, retention limits, deletion on request, breach reporting. All of those are far easier to build in now than to add at scale later.

The provision that deserves more attention than it gets is Section 9. Under the Act anyone below eighteen is a child. Processing their data requires verifiable consent from a parent or guardian, and tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising directed at children are prohibited outright. A longitudinal skin diary is behavioural monitoring on any reasonable reading. So for a platform like ours this is not a consent checkbox — it decides whether you can serve that age group at all. 

There is also a point that matters to me beyond the legal minimum. We ask people to contribute data over months, which only works if they understand what they are contributing and why. If consent is buried, we have not really obtained it — whatever the law allows. 

We want to encourage users to contribute data because, ultimately, that data can help them understand their own skin better.

This becomes particularly relevant for chronic skin conditions, where the skin may remain stable for a period and then suddenly flare. With a longitudinal record you can begin to identify patterns around those changes, instead of only asking why something happened suddenly.

That is the direction in which we want to take the platform.

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