The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of bemotrizinol in sunscreen on Tuesday, the first time the federal agency has given the green light to a new active ingredient in sunscreen since the 2000s. The FDA first announced in December that it was investigating bemotrizinol as an ingredient after DSM Nutritional Products LLC applied to use it in concentrations up to 6%. The ingredient has been widely used in Europe, Australia, and Asia for decades, and health experts have encouraged its approval in the U.S. Bemotrizinol has been added to the OTC monograph for sunscreen, a process that lays out how nonprescription therapies can be used, manufactured, and dosed to be generally recognized as safe without explicit approval from the FDA. “As promised in the Trump Administration’s MAHA Strategy Report, HHS is advancing innovation by bringing a new sunscreen ingredient to the U.S. market for the first time in 20 years,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr said in a statement. “Bemotrizinol has been used safely in Europe for decades, and FDA’s action will increase competition and consumer confidence in sunscreen products.”
As CNN notes, the sunscreens currently available in the U.S. are good at blocking ultraviolet B rays, which cause sunburns, but they’re not great at blocking ultraviolet A rays (UVA), which can penetrate deep and contribute to skin cancer. The addition of bemotrizinol is expected to change that.
