Editor’s Note
**Editor’s Note:** This article examines Amorepacific Holdings’ strategic pivot from traditional cosmetics toward medical aesthetics and AI-driven R&D, highlighting its efforts to integrate professional treatments with daily skincare and leverage decades of research for long-term growth.
Amorepacific Holdings is moving away from its traditional business structure centered on cosmetics manufacturing and sales, and is pursuing a business structure improvement focused on entering the medical aesthetics field and AI-based R&D digital transformation.
The company is making strategic investments to link professional beauty treatments with daily skincare, while also converting 70 years of research assets into an AI platform to secure mid- to long-term competitiveness.
Amorepacific Holdings recently signed a strategic investment agreement with Higher Corporation, a company specializing in dermatological medical devices. This collaboration goes beyond simple equity participation, aiming to jointly develop next-generation integrated beauty and medical solutions that connect professional beauty treatments with daily home care.
The two companies are adopting a structure that combines their respective areas of expertise. Since its establishment in 2021, Higher Corporation has developed capabilities in aesthetic medical devices, such as the Dual-HA-based collagen booster HILOWAVE, and has a global network of medical professionals. Amorepacific Holdings possesses accumulated skin science research capabilities and skincare brand assets.
The two companies will pursue the development of skin boosters, cosmeceuticals, and beauty medical devices. They plan to expand their business scope to include the development of aftercare products for skin irritated by treatments and collaboration on distribution to hospitals and clinics. This strategy simultaneously links the medical aesthetics market centered on hospitals and clinics with the skincare market centered on general consumers.
Photo: Amorepacific R&I Center Mijium
In addition to combining with external technologies, the digital transformation of internal R&D infrastructure is also in full swing. Through the Data Highway project promoted in collaboration with KT, Amorepacific has developed AI Assistant LEMON, a research-specific generative AI service.
Since the establishment of Korea’s first cosmetics research lab in 1954, vast amounts of data—including raw material information, formulation data, patents, and papers—have been standardized to build an AI data hub. LEMON, developed based on this, helps researchers quickly perform tasks such as searching and analyzing research data and responding to regulations.
As a result of beta testing, tasks that previously took about 12 days for research material review and regulatory review in the product planning stage have been reduced to about 5 minutes. The time required to review the research history and applicability of specific raw materials has also been drastically reduced from about 6 days to about 5 minutes.
The global beauty market is rapidly being reshaped by the convergence of medical technology and skincare, as well as competition in AI-based rapid raw material discovery and product development.
Amorepacific Group’s recent moves are analyzed as a measure to simultaneously pursue portfolio expansion through external partnerships and internal process innovation. Through the investment in Higher Corporation, it is securing contact points in the medical aesthetics channel, and with the establishment of AI Assistant LEMON, it is boosting R&D speed and efficiency.
It remains to be seen whether Amorepacific’s convergence strategy, centered on technological advancement and research efficiency, will lead to shortened product development cycles and enhanced market competitiveness.
Kim Ja-young