So Joe, before we start, welcome back to Nu Skin.
Yeah, thank you MueL. It's sort of interesting, I actually never... I know, I know, right? So, but it's been a very exciting over the last year or so, especially with the launch of the Prism device and some of the new things that are coming up.
I sort of felt so passionate about those products and things that I have to stay, you know, because I have to at least help all our distributors and leaders to understand why these products are so exciting and innovative. So I'm back, and in a way I've never left, so I can't even say that honestly. However, I love doing... I mean, Nu Skin to me is a family, and that's why I say I've never left. And it's so good to be back and be able to see all of you again as the chief scientific officer of Nu Skin.
And we're really, really happy, and I'm sure all the OTG and LeaderNet members at the event will be very excited to see you.
Yeah, don't forget that it's Malta, right? Yeah.
It's wonderful, and I hope you had a great time. I love Malta as a city, and part of Spain is nice and warm.
So we have a few questions, of course product related. I think one of the main questions is always why do we come up with the products that we come up with? Is it based on market trends? Is it based on the work that you do in the laboratories? Is it based on conversation with the field leadership? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Sure. And it's an interesting process for us at Nu Skin. It's not just about one thing that MueL just talked about. It's about all those things taken together. But most importantly for us is that we are always constantly innovating. Yeah. So we never actually try to develop what I call a me-too product. So depending, sometimes the idea could come from one of you in fact, from the field as well. Perhaps you have a product that's called Beauty Focus Collagen. Frankly, there was a product that many of our leaders felt was an important product to have.
But I'll come into that in a minute, right? And talk about that specifically. But right for now, that's where this product, the idea started.
Some other ideas could come from our scientific advisory board. That is also something that is unique to Nu Skin. We have a lot of professors, you know, whether it's from Europe, whether it's from Asia, whether it's from the US, they come together and just like this Team Elite meeting, we have scientific meetings, and sometimes the idea will come up and we say, 'Hmm, that's interesting for us to somewhat pursue.' What I'm trying to say is really because of all these different sources of ideas, you know, science is now more of a team sport. Product development is no more one single player that generates all the ideas. It's about a collection of all these talents.
So Beauty Focus Collagen, that's an example of a product that actually came about by a market leadership wish. Yeah. So that's a great sort of entree and segue into this, use that as a specific example. So now we have a source identified, the idea looks good, it's exciting.
But the first thing we think of, we are not going to make, obviously there are other collagen products in the market, other companies are making, you say we're not going to make that kind of collagen product. We don't want to be just another me-too. If you truly look at what we have in Beauty Focus Collagen product, the difference is because what we did was take that idea and make it better. That's the important thing. Our scientists say, okay, great. For example, yes, our collagen product and maybe our competitive products, they all make new collagen, right, on your skin. That's the fundamental idea.
But what's the point of making new collagen? Because you are going to live in the same place where the previous type or your current collagen is being destroyed by your environment, like the sun. So we say we got to find a way to protect even this new collagen, and that's where we say we have to protect it. So we included an ingredient, an antioxidant particularly that stays on the skin to protect the new collagen. So now we have built, we are now protecting.
And there's another one for the skin that is very important: moisturize. All of you understand, right, in order to keep your skin healthy, you have to keep it hydrated, right.
So what did we do? We put an internal sponge, not a real sponge, but a chemical sponge that we call ceramide, so that it can hold the water under your skin better.
That's a difference. Most of you use external moisturizers. We say we may be able to do one better: to keep it internal. When you take the Beauty Focus Collagen product, it has an internal moisturizer. So what do we do? Build, protect, moisturize. No other collagen product out there does that. So that's how we innovate, right? It's not to just make another me-too product, it's to make it actually even better. That's one example.
Prism is another one. Maybe I'll just say it now. That's an idea that we got from a university from the very early days. Oh my goodness, it's more than 20 years now. But we have progressed this particular device to a point now that many of you are looking at it as a disc rather than a portable measuring the palm, right? Just all you have to do is put it on a finger. But the most important thing is that it's no more the previous scanner. What we have done is that with this Prism, with the introduction of AI into the world, we're able to look at all the data that we have over the last 20 years and be able to say, what does it mean? You measure antioxidant, what does it really mean? Well, we are able to translate that. The Prism now is actually a nutritional monitor. It's not just an antioxidant monitor. That's the transformation. That's another innovation that if we don't have the science, we would never ever have been able to do that. So these are just two examples. It can come from many places: university, the leader in the field, and some of our internal ideas from our scientists as well, but they all go into what I call a collective bin, and that's where we say, how can we do better?
I actually have a question on that too, because we of course know all the scientists in Bravo, but how many people are involved when you develop a new product? Can you say something about that so people understand how the process and maybe the teams look like.
Yeah. I always felt that when people say we are doing science, well actually what do you mean by that? In this day and age, science is a multi-disciplinary sport, I call it. You guys all play football, right? If I have the biggest and most talented center forward striker and I pick all 11 players as strikers, you will never win. You have to pass, right? Strikers are not very good in passing. You got to have a midfielder, like a Beckenbauer or somebody like that, to direct the whole sport. Science is the same way. It has to have different types of scientists. We have nutritionists, we have biochemists, we have device engineers, and so on and so forth. But fundamentally, it's a team.
And collectively, between our US group of scientists, we also have some China scientists as well. Together we have about slightly over 70.
And depending on the project, if it's a skin project, then the skin biologists and folks like that will be more involved in that. And then on a nutritional supplement, it's the same thing. So yeah, we cannot do science with just one person.
