Marta de Oliveira Ferreira: “The humanisation of processes will be more valued in the future”

In this edition of Out Of Office, we spoke with the CEO of Inovapotek, Marta de Oliveira Ferreira. This is the story of one of the founders of the first spin-off of the University of Porto, who started working in rented stalls and embarked on the adventure of entrepreneurship in October 2008, the month of the stock market crash. After 15 years, she is looking to triple the company's volume in the next three years but wants to do it step by step. In the meantime, she took off her researcher's "gown" and now puts on the CEO's suit, revealing that mindfulness is her secret to reconciling her professional and family life with two children, whom she met by chance and now applies to both aspects of her life. And what do UPTEC and Inovapotek have in common? A lot, their stories intersect umbilically, and this is where you can read it all!

What is Inovapotek?

Inovapotek is a CRO – Contract Research Organization, an entity that provides research and development, testing and testing services for the cosmetics industry, the pharmaceutical industry, medical devices and food supplements. What we do is use our knowledge to help our customers develop products that are safe, effective, innovative, compliant with regulatory requirements, and meet consumer needs. I have always liked applied research and, basically, it was here that I found my passion, which was, in fact, to be able to contribute to the development of new products which end up on the shelves of supermarkets, pharmacies or perfumeries, with some speed. Being able to help our client, contributing with all our knowledge from the days of university researchers, and then as Inovapotek 15 years later, is very good. It is a tremendous personal and professional achievement.

And how does the whole process unfold when the potential customer arrives at Inovapotek?

We can effectively transform our clients’ initial ideas into actual products on the market that respond to specific needs. From the development of the product in our laboratory to the preparation of all the stability tests, as well as all the tests to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the product and, in essence, to prove the claims of the products. We also have regulatory support and consulting support so that products can actually be put on sale in the market and then be on the shelves, in advertisements, in magazines, and so on, it’s a huge taste.

And how did it all start?

I’ve always enjoyed researching and working in this product research area. I started doing it while still at the University, in the Pharmaceutical Sciences course at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto (FFUP). In the middle of the course, I started to do some research and product development work, at the time of a medicine, and then later, after college, I ended up working for a company that had a project to develop a brand of cosmetic products with thermal water. I was hired to develop the first Portuguese line of cosmetic products with thermal water. At the end of this project, I knew that this was what I liked to do and wanted to do. In 2008, I had some invitations to work in this area, but they were all far from here, in Lisbon or outside Portugal. Nobody could do anything here, and it was hard for me; it didn’t make sense. I knew there was a lot of knowledge here, many people with many skills, even installed in the colleges, to provide excellent service to the outside. Basically, the work I had developed so far had captured the interest of some entities, and so I thought, “Why not create a company to provide this work?”. It doesn’t matter if we are in Porto; we have very competent resources. Porto has a lot of skills, and it is right here that Inovapotek will happen, and it will happen from here to the world.

How thoughtful was that decision?

It came about relatively quickly. For some time, I had wanted to undertake, to develop a company, to do something, so much so that I took a course at ANJE, an advanced program in entrepreneurship and business creation. Since then, the bug and desire to do something have remained. I created business plans for two or three companies that didn’t happen, and then, very quickly, I created this fourth one where I could gather my knowledge.

Didn't the first three attempts deter you?

I really believed I would make it. I had two potential clients who wanted to work with me on some projects, so Inovapotek came up with that in hand, which is good (laughs), but I still need to figure out what it would be like next. Nowadays, the human and technical quality we have in Porto is undeniable, but 15 years ago, entrepreneurship was not seen in this way, and much of the talent created in Porto had to go abroad. So, it was something that gave me immense pleasure to have been able to do. Creating and giving jobs in this area to people who like to do what I would also like to have done, which at the time was not possible, is very good.

“15 years ago, entrepreneurship was not seen in this way, and much of the talent created in Porto had to go abroad.”

And did you start Inovapotek on your own?

Bruno Sarmento and I founded and are still the partners of the company. Bruno Sarmento is a professor, leads a research group at i3S, and was also in the Faculty of Pharmacy at the time, finishing his PhD, which is dedicated to the pharmaceutical area in developing modified-release systems. At the time, I said to him, “I know you’re more into academic research, but don’t you want to join me in this adventure? I think it could be interesting for us to create some synergies here”, and since then we have been founding partners of Inovapotek. He has never worked in the company directly; he has other activities more linked to the academic world, but he has other skills and knowledge that add a lot to our activity.

What were the early days of the company like?

We were born with nothing (laughs). We didn’t have a laboratory; we didn’t have a beaker at all. We wanted a partnership at the time, initially with the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto. It was challenging because, at the time, entrepreneurship was something that no one knew what it was, right? Now it’s very different, and thankfully! The University of Porto did an incredible job of developing this area, but at the time, 15 years ago, everything was still very much in its genesis. We were the first spin-off of the University of Porto, founded when the regulation was also being developed. It didn’t make sense for colleges to have costly equipment, knowledge and precious techniques, sometimes acquired by a particular project. Then they were sitting there without anyone using them, so my proposal to the universities was, “We have these projects, we have this work, we know how to use them, so I pay (laughs). I pay for one day, half a day’s work, for renting this equipment or workbench, and they let me use it.” And that’s how it happened; we had our first laboratory in 2011, and in those first years, we worked like this on half a meter of rented bench (laughs).

How many people are there now working here and in general?

We have about 20 full-time employees and several other employees who work with us freelance, namely doctors. We do many clinical studies with medical control, dermatologists, ophthalmologists, gynaecologists, and dentistry, who work with us on demand, depending on the work we have in progress.

How does your current business model work?

We have various types of projects and customers here. We have clients who actually want to launch a new brand and make something from scratch. They come to us with an initial idea, “I wanted to develop a brand with my name”, and we can, in the first instance, even provide some consulting work to organise the whole project, explain what they have to do, the different stages of the project, do all the R&D planning, help build the product briefings, the market positioning, and then we move on. We can do the project from A to Z, distinguishing us from competitors. Things evolve from the first briefing, which then turns into prototypes of that product that the client himself adapts, and we customise it to the client’s measure. After the prototype, we move on to stability studies, clinical studies, and the regulatory process; we help select the packaging and validate labelling, and the products are eventually produced and launched. We also accompany the first manufacture of the products.

And for those who already have brands established in the market?

These come to us because they often don’t have enough internal capacity or because they have very complicated projects and need more brains with the knowledge to try to find solutions to some problem with a given product. Others who come to us can range from medium-sized companies to the largest international players in the field of cosmetics, especially where brands look for laboratories to test products to prove their claims. When you see ads for anti-wrinkles, moisturisers, depigmenting, protecting the microbiome, etc., those claims have to be supported, or they should be scientifically supported, and the way to do that is by hiring laboratories like ours, which allow us to conduct clinical studies to prove these claims. These studies appear in advertising, with tiny asterisks saying, “product tested in an independent laboratory on 30 women and with the result of less x per cent of wrinkles”. We’re that independent laboratory (laughs). It’s a particular business area. Some multinationals also have centres that allow them to do this. Still, they outsource independent laboratories to provide the product with a more sustained credibility. We also have other types of customers and manufacturers outside Europe who want to import the products to our continent and need regulatory support to comply with what is required here. If not, we can supplement it with the necessary tests and do the regulatory process.

Are there any brands you've worked with, and what are the highlights? A well-known product that you were involved in developing?

I can’t (laughs)! For several reasons, one being confidentiality, this is very important in our activity. There are many brands and products that we are not allowed to advertise, and that were made by us, and to select the remarkable ones and, let us say, would be unfair to the others; I can’t do it (laughs).

“Only lunatic people would start a company like we did during the 2008 stock market crash”

Where does the name Inovapotek come from?

Bruno and I went to the Registry Office to register the company, and we thought that the name was not very important and that our idea would be differentiating enough. Still, we wanted an internationally pronounceable name. Because we come from this area, we thought of InovFarm, but that could no longer be registered, so one of the alternatives to Pharma was Apotek, which in several languages means Pharmacy, so it became Inovapotek.

How did this connection to UPTEC come about?

We came from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto, and our knowledge and the genesis of Inovapotek came from there. It was there that we were developing work, so it happened naturally. We rented our first office at NET – New Companies and Technologies, an incubation reception centre, which greatly helped us in 2008. When we wanted to have the first space with a laboratory, that’s when we came to UPTEC. In the building where it was initially installed, it was possible to have a vivarium, there were laboratories set up, and the companies that had this need for access to laboratories went there, like us. We were there for about three years, more or less, and in 2011, we came here to the room where we are today.

In 2023, they completed 15 years of existence, as well as UPTEC. What are the main benefits you feel from being part of this community?

We grow up together, don’t we? UPTEC was also taking its first steps with a lot of will and the right vision. When we came here, we felt that we were surrounded by those who have the same vision as us, who also have the mind to make it happen, who have ambition, who persist, and who know how to chase Dreams; it is very inspiring and gives us the strength to make this path too.

In these 15 years, have there been any remarkable moments in your growth?

We were born out of difficulty, not only because of everything I’ve told you before, but because we founded Inovapotek in October 2008, in the middle of the stock market crash. Only lunatic people would start a company like we did during the 2008 stock market crash (laughs). But that’s what made us more resilient. Adversity is something we face with a smile and move forward. Later on, in 2010, our internationalisation process was already underway. We were at our first International Fair, in-cosmetics Global, in Paris. At this fair, we are every year, and it was absolutely fundamental for our recognition in the market, and to leverage our growth. It was also essential when we achieved something more common nowadays, but at the time, we were the first Portuguese company to achieve accreditation in France, within the scope of the crédit d’impôt recherche (CIR), another fundamental step to cement Inovapotek.

What's next?

The life of companies is made up of several stages. We are in a transformation phase, of changing a series of processes, models and tools in an internal program that we call MoveON. We are preparing the company for the next step. How we plan our growth will allow us to triple our current volume in the next three years. Our internal motto is “step by step, day by day”, and that is how we also see this growth process: sustained and safe, it characterises us. We never had outside capital or other types of investors involved; we wanted to do things on our own, step by step. We are also attentive to how Artificial Intelligence can contribute to optimising all our processes. Artificial Intelligence is part of a future that no one can take away from us anymore; we need to know how to use it best and take advantage of it.