Photo Credit: Ravi Balineni and John KellyDr. Liia Ramachandra, Pharm.D., Ph.D. is a serial entrepreneur and healthcare executive. Dr. Liia is the Founder and CEO EpiLynx, Gluten-Free Skin Care and Cosmetics Brand. She comes with vast experience in Global Medical Affairs, Global Ethics and Compliance, Clinical Research, and Global Publications. Dr. Liia drove the development of the strategic vision and mission for the national field-based medical program, the development of publication plans, the planning and management of medical activities at scientific congresses, the development of programs resources for Regional Medical Liaisons, and Biopharmaceutical Representatives.
What is your greatest achievement?
There are 3:
My greatest achievement is being a mother to 3 wonderful children and raising them to be happy, confident, kind, genuine, and beautiful inside out.
Secondly, starting from scratch and growing our medically clean healthcare company (EpiLynx by Dr. Liia) that empowers people to feel safe using skincare and makeup while having various allergies and skin conditions.
Lastly, having the privilege to work in the first-in-class pharmaceutical companies and utilizing my knowledge to help many patients with IBD, pain, skin conditions, and oncology conditions, all over the world!
What is the future of your field?
Redefining the skincare. Skincare and cosmetics should not just be chemically clean but also medically clean. Meaning clean of the most common allergens as per FDA.
Although “clean” is a popular marketing term at the moment, when I started my research, I noticed that none of the many skincare products marketed as “clean” fit the mold of what I consider safe and functional for people with certain skin conditions. Since there is no formal definition of what qualifies a product as “clean”, a company can label just about any product “clean” despite the ingredients, according to NPR. “Clean”, for us, means free of the most common allergens such as nuts, gluten, shellfish, dairy, parabens, and phthalates. “Clean” needs to be seen not only as a chemical concept but also as a medical concept. This distinction is key to helping alleviate the symptoms of skin conditions and, more importantly, not aggravating symptoms with the wrong skincare products and cosmetics.
What are your most requested products?
Our Sunrise Beauty Set: Clean Serum, Face Cream, and Eye Cream.
Our Liquid Precision Eyeliners and 10 color blushes.
What skincare advancements are you most excited about?
The growing awareness that the skin is the largest organ and everything that people put on their skin will get absorbed into their body. Skincare should be treated as food that you eat. If you are allergic to certain things, the chance is that you will be allergic to skincare-containing those products. My hope is that the FDA will start paying closer attention to the skincare production and legislation as they do with the medicines.
What are you best known for?
EpiLynx by Dr. Liia, our allergen-free, medically clean skincare.
What is your most memorable patient reaction?
1. Patients saying that they can now finally use skincare and makeup for the first time in the last 20 years and not being afraid of an allergic reaction. One nurse said that she has not used eyeliner for 25 years since it always would give her an allergic reaction and now she can. Celiac patients saying that they now can use skincare that is safe and how happy they are and how people are commenting how they are glowing and look younger.
2. Parents saying that they are so grateful that they can use body creams etc on their children with celiac disease or eczema and how they feel safe doing it. One mother (in her sixties) said that she has gifted her daughter the beauty set and how her daughter’s life literally has changed and she was crying telling me that her daughter said that she is the best Mom in the world.
What sets your practice apart?
We are redefining the way beauty should be. We should take the chemically clean skincare as the foundation and now move towards medically clean skincare.
What do you love most about your profession?
Helping patients and my customers and making them feel empowered, confident, and beautiful inside out!
What new services are you excited to offer?:
We are constantly redefining ourselves. I, myself, reply to every customer and listen to them and we are very customer-focused. We are optimizing our skincare to attend to customer needs every time we hear of a new condition or allergy.
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