The FDA Approved A New Sunscreen Ingredient For The First Time In 27 Years.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved bemotrizinol as the first new active sunscreen ingredient permitted in the United States since 1999, ending a 27-year gap during which American consumers had access to far fewer UV-filtering options than people in Europe, Asia, and most of the rest of the world. Bemotrizinol is a broad-spectrum chemical filter that absorbs both UVA and UVB radiation, the two types of ultraviolet light responsible for skin cancer, premature aging, and sunburn, and has been used safely in European sunscreens for over two decades. In the US, sunscreen is regulated as a drug rather than a cosmetic, which means new ingredients require FDA review before they can be sold, a process that had stalled for a generation, leaving American shelves with a fraction of the UV filters available internationally. Manufacturers may begin including bemotrizinol in their formulas starting August 9, with the ingredient expected to debut under the brand name Parsol Shield before other manufacturers gain access after 18 months.
Dermatologists are calling it a meaningful and long-overdue advance. What makes bemotrizinol particularly exciting is a combination of properties that none of the existing US-approved chemical filters share simultaneously: it is highly photostable, meaning it breaks down far more slowly than avobenzone when exposed to intense sunlight, and it absorbs into the bloodstream at significantly lower rates than most other chemical filters due to its larger molecular size, addressing one of the primary safety concerns that had hung over earlier generation chemical UV filters for years. Adam Friedman, chair of dermatology at GW School of Medicine, called it a genuinely meaningful advance and one that many in dermatology had been waiting decades to see. Because bemotrizinol can also be combined with zinc oxide without reducing effectiveness or increasing white cast, it opens up new formulations that offer the best of both mineral and chemical protection in one product. Research has consistently shown that most US sunscreens provide only about one-quarter of the UVA protection their SPF labels suggest, and the arrival of a better-performing, more stable broad-spectrum filter is being welcomed as exactly the kind of innovation the skin cancer prevention toolbox has needed.
