4 august 2025
Kolmar Korea becomes first cosmetic manufacturer to pass BIPEA SPF proficiency test
Korean cosmetic manufacturing giant Kolmar Korea has announced that it has recently passed the international SPF proficiency test for sunscreens, organised by France’s BIPEA (Bureau Interprofessionnel d’Études Analytiques).
Kolmar Korea is the first cosmetic manufacturer (as opposed to contract research organisations or third-party clinical trial labs) in the world to pass the test.
What is BIPEA and why it matters in sunscreen testing
BIPEA is a French organisation that evaluates the analytical accuracy and reliability of laboratories worldwide against international standards across multiple industries and it is the only body in the world that validates the precision of SPF in vivo measurements on an international scale.
In the latest round of BIPEA’s proficiency programme for in vivo SPF testing, Kolmar Korea was the only cosmetic manufacturer invited to participate alongside major contract research organisations. The test involved measuring the SPF values of two blinded sunscreen samples (a sunscreen oil and a sunscreen milk) provided by BIPEA. Kolmar Korea passed the test with a high level of accuracy by producing SPF results that closely matched BIPEA’s reference values.
What’s next: KOLAS accreditation and in-house clinical testing
Based on this result, Kolmar Korea plans to obtain official accreditation from KOLAS (Korea Laboratory Accreditation Scheme), a government body under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. If approved, the company will be recognised as an internationally accredited testing laboratory and will be able to conduct valid SPF clinical trials in-house, without the need for external testing labs.
Source: 팜뉴스.
Words: © 2025 Odile Monod.
Visuals: Kolmar Korea.
You may not reproduce the above article for commercial purposes without the express written consent of the translator.
