In 2004, we invested €101 million (previous year: €97 million) or 2.2 % (previous year: 2.2 %) of sales in research and development.

Consumer

We opened our new research center in Hamburg in August 2004. Along with 6,500 m² of additional laboratory space, it houses a self-contained, fully air-conditioned test center and a state-of-the-art auditorium for up to 500 people. It provides us with the best possible conditions to continue with our innovative research and development work.

Our skin research activities focus systematically on fulfilling consumer wishes. We make use of processes that occur naturally in the skin. Our main aim is to have a positive influence on skin aging.

For example, NIVEA body Milk & Lotion contains ingredients that stimulate the skin to produce more moisture.

The systematic further development of the Q10 concept led to the new Q10 plus range of products. The skin needs energy in order to slow down the aging process. That’s why the new Q10 plus products contain both Q10 and creatine, which provide and store energy respectively. This highly effective combination reduces the depth of existing wrinkles and prevents new ones from forming.

	Our intensive research and development activities aim to provide customers with compelling, innovative products.

In the area of sun protection, we developed a new process that allows the anti-aging factor of sun protection products to be determined. This process has been recognized by experts worldwide and is soon to be published by DIN (the German industry standards body) as an official method. We are using the UVA balance to increase the protection offered by our sun protection products. This means we can offer consumers an adequate, improved level of protection against long-term skin damage from sunbathing.

We introduced a new heat plaster in wound care – the Hansaplast Heat Pad. The plaster contains iron powder, which oxidizes in the presence of oxygen, thus emitting heat and easing tense muscles.

We further improved our polyurethane plaster by adding silver, which plays a major role in wound disinfection. For this reason, a selection of plasters in the Hansaplast/Elastoplast range now contain silver, which reduces the risk of infection.

tesa

tesa’s research activities in 2004 continued to focus on the development of environmentally friendly coating systems for the production of adhesive tape. We added further product variants to the solvent-free latex systems for masking tape already being used successfully in production. Another key achievement was the implementation of solvent-free acrylate systems. Special applications in the automotive industry developed with a radiation curing system have already established themselves on the market. With the help of a new curing system, we tested formulas for the electronics industry based on solvent-free acrylates that improve production processes considerably for customers.

In the case of double-sided adhesive tape, our focus is on the development of pure acrylate systems based on conventional technology to supplement the successful range available for the electronics industry. One of the benefits of the new optically functional self-adhesive products for LCD screens is longer battery life, as the light source of the appliances can be used more efficiently. New heat-activatable films are now also used to glue digital camera casings. The main area of use for these had previously been in the production of smartcards. In the area of one-sided adhesive tape, we developed a new generation of film-based halogen-free cable harnessing tapes to market readiness.

Our Holospot technology for forgery protection was successfully tested on the market in initial applications and was supplemented with new visible and invisible features. We concluded development of the tesa ROM for bit-based data storage on schedule, and are now in the licensing phase.