As It Turns Out, It Doesn't Have to Be a Rose to Smell as Sweet

    By Kevin E. Noonan --

Insidious (adj.): operating or proceeding in an inconspicuous or seemingly harmless way but actually with grave effect.

On Saturday, The New York Times published an article analogizing two industries most readers would not have thought to be similar:  the perfume industry and innovator pharmaceutical companies (see "Ahh, the Seductive Fragrance of Molecules under Patent").  But the similarities are manifold, and upon reflection are not that surprising.

Like the pharmaceutical industry, perfumeries are constantly in need of new molecules, not to treat diseases of course but to provide the source material for new fragrances.  For example, the article cites Kate Greene, vice president for marketing at Swiss scent maker Givaudan, as saying the company makes more than 2,000 new scent molecules every year, but develops only 3 or 4 of them as commercial products.  Development costs are high:  although Givaudan has annual profits of 2.9 billion Swiss francs, it also invests almost 400 million francs in research each year and employs more than 50 scientists in these efforts.  Similar efforts are reported in the article for Japanese scent company Takasago International Corporation; Symrise of Holzminden, Germany; and International Flavors and Fragrances of New York, who collectively spend "billions" in research.

The return on investment is high, with individual scents (used as components for popular perfumes and other fragrances) so dear, their producers decline to specify their cost (other than saying they were "not cheap).  These new scent molecules provide the raw material for the up to 600 new fragrances introduced each year.  They also have advantages over naturally-occurring scents, such as lacking allergenicity present in natural products such as rose ketones, the amount of which is restricted due to their propensity to provoke allergic reactions.  Other advantages include the capacity to cling to fabrics, to be used in scented laundry products and soaps, while at the same time being more potent so that less scent must be used (and less water used to wash the scent away).

Importantly, there are also ecological advantages:  for example, the article cites the price of natural sandalwood as reaching $1,700 per kilogram, due to severe over-foresting of Indian sandalwood that forced the Indian government to ban further harvesting.  Additionally, using synthetic rather than naturally-occurring scents avoids the ancillary economic and ecological costs of fertilizers, soil erosion, and diverting cropland to non-agricultural uses.

Some of the most expensive of the scents, described as "captives" in the industry, are those that are under patent, the most potent analogy made by the article to the pharmaceutical industry.  In addition to the analogies noted above to the high development costs and low probability of success, the article also notes the importance of toxicology and the effects of the scope of available patent protection in different countries (while getting the current extent of U.S. patent term wrong, citing a figure not used for the past thirteen years).

But the analogies to patenting and its importance to the industry are where an otherwise informative article goes a little wrong.  Maybe it's because the Times published it, or maybe it's the title ("Ahh, the Seductive Fragrance of Molecules under Patent") (something that could be the product of a copy editor well aware of the Times patent animus).  Whatever the reason, rather than being enlightening, the patent angle seems gratuitous.  The antiparallels to pharmaceuticals are never mentioned:  the much higher regulatory costs and barriers for drugs, the factors other than toxicity that can make even fewer potential drug leads suitable for commercialization, and of course the unstated difference between "luxury" items like perfumes and life-saving drugs.  And the overall effect is insidious:  another Times article where patents are not described as helping companies protect hard-earned investment but rather just make things cost too much.  The unspoken assumptions have substantive consequences:  in discussing Takasago's patent strategy for it synthetic must product, l-muscone (the company patented the synthetic methods rather than the scent itself), the effect, that these methods will be dedicated to the public when Takasago's patents expire goes unmentioned.  It seems a shame that such important considerations are left to innuendo or discussed obliquely, even by the Times.  You might even say it stinks.

Comments

[Perfume]

The pharmacuetical compaies are really working on perfum industry a lot.... they are in Green coz everyone wants a good fragranbce specially france and paris are earning more in this industry.....

http://www.perfumesofparis.net/