Skin of Color Society awards innovation grants to two finalists

Key takeaways:

• The companies Seaspire and Thimble won innovation grants from the Skin of Color Society.
• Both companies are dedicated to alleviating the struggles that disproportionally affect the skin of color community.

SAN DIEGO — The Skin of Color Society has awarded innovation grants to two finalists at the 20th Annual Skin of Color Society Scientific Symposium.

Camille A. Martin, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Seaspire Inc., and Manju Dawkins, MD, founder and CEO of Thimble, were this year’s grant recipients.

Seaspire

Founded in 2019 after 8 years of research, Martin’s company, Seaspire, created a technology called Xanthochrome, a water-soluble antioxidant and a broad-spectrum light protector that can mitigate photoaging and oxidative stress when added to sunscreens.

Inspired by the chromophores found in cephalopods such as squids, cuttlefish and octopus, Xanthochrome is a high refractive index biomolecule that protects against not only ultraviolet wavelengths, but also high energy visible light.

“The broad-spectrum protection provided by Xanthochrome in a formula is especially important for designing the next generation of sunscreens for skin of color users due to the data that suggests melanin-rich skin is more susceptible to pigmentation disorders that are exacerbated by long wave UVA and visible light,” Martin told Healio.

Xanthochrome may also be an appealing product for patients with skin of color because it does not create a white cast.

“We have overcome the white casting effect of many mineral-based products with our novel formulation strategies, making our Xanthochrome-enriched sunscreen a great candidate for improving user compliance,” she said.

Thimble

With a similar motivation of improving user compliance, Dawkins, the second innovation grant winner, created a company called Thimble which is dedicated to alleviating pain associated with needle injections.

According to Dawkins, 210 million adults and 47 million children in the U.S. experience needle fear — a six-fold increase since 1995 — with the largest contributor to this fear being pain.

As a result, 33.1% of patients have avoided vaccines, 27.1% avoided injection for mild medical conditions and 18.3% avoided injection for severe medical conditions.

In her presentation, Dawkins referenced WHO’s recommendation that if physicians could mitigate pain, vaccine hesitancy may decrease, and positive health attitudes may increase.

“This is why I started Thimble,” Dawkins said during her presentation. “Thimble is the first comprehensive solution for needle pain and fear.”

Thimble offers two patent-pending, pain-mitigating patches and an emotional support app for needle injections and procedures. The first patch, called the Prepare Patch, is a lidocaine-containing patch that is applied to patients before any needle procedure to reduce needling-induced pain. This is followed by the Recover Patch which is applied after the shot to soothe aches and soreness that often follow needle procedures.

Thimble also offers an app that provides support at every step to reduce pain and anxiety associated with needle fear. These offerings are available to patients without a prescription, according to Dawkins.

“We all in this room know that Black and Brown pain is not treated the same,” Dawkins added. “We believe that everyone deserves access to these solutions and that is why everything we create is available without a prescription.

“I know this is not something that is on the tops of minds of most people in health care, but I genuinely think it should be,” Dawkins added. “Because what’s the point of all these incredible advances in science and medicine when people don’t want to use them?”

Reference:

• Dawkins M. Thimble Health: Alleviating needle pain and fear. Presented at: Skin of Color Society Scientific Symposium; March 7, 2024; San Diego.