Squalene Market Size

Squalene Market Size

Squalene Market size is forecast to exceed 5,300 tons by 2022, with over 9% CAGR from 2015 to 2022. This global market report expects industry revenue to exceed USD 240 million. Strong cosmetics demand, particularly in Germany, France, UK and Italy is likely to drive the market size.

Germany dominated the Europe personal care & cosmetics sector with over 14 billion in 2014, while France, UK and Italy were valued around USD 12 billion, USD 11.8 billion and USD 10.6 billion respectively in the same year.

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Revenue growth is most likely to come from primary applications such as anti-ageing & moisturizing creams and emollients. Anti-inflammatory & anti-oxidation characteristics are widely desired in lotions, creams, ointments and lipsticks.

Squalene market demand was historically mostly met from shark liver oil, which contains it in maximum amount at 30% in comparison to other vegetable sources. Excessive shark killing for liver oil has drawn attention of various regulatory agencies and environment groups, to limit deep water fishing. This had seen global consumption shrink by more than 60% over the last decade.

Deepwater sharks are most vulnerable to overexploitation owing to low reproduction potential, this has already caused decline of some species such as the Portuguese shark, which is rich in liver oil content. In 2008, cosmetic industry giants such as Unilever and L’Oreal had announced to replace shark liver oils with plant derived oils.

Since 2006, EU has imposed limitations on deep sea shark fishing and has secured certain ban on directed fisheries through CCAMLR and North East Atlantic Fisheries Organization. This has restricted shark pouching to certain extent and has also caused the squalene market price trend fluctuation along with supply imbalance.

Vegetable sources such as olive oil, amaranth oil, rice bran oil and wheat germ oil have also experienced tight supply in recent years, with demand from competing applications and low crop yields. Additionally, extraction from olive oil is not particularly attractive in terms of cost.

Amyris, a biotechnology company, has developed metabolic yeast route for low cost farnesene production, which is an essential building block for numerous chemicals, including squalene. The company started focusing on this industry only in 2012, via its first commercial farnesene facility in Brazil, however, synthetic squalene from Amyris already accounts for over 10% of global supply.