U.S. approved a game-changing sunscreen chemical, but Europe and Asia remain way ahead

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new chemical that can be used in sunscreen.

Bemotrizinol has been used in sunscreens in other parts of the world for years, but until June 2026, it has not been allowed in products made in the United States. And the FDA’s approval of it has led to optimism that it could lead more Americans to use sunscreen.

Michael Scaturro is a health journalist who has written about sunscreen for KFF Health News. He joined The Show to talk about what this chemical actually is.

Full conversation

MICHAEL SCATURRO: So, this is a sunscreen chemical, a UV filter that has actually been used in Europe and in Asia for about 20 years. It is incredibly safe. It was designed to be safer because you have all these concerns around older sunscreen chemicals, and this sunscreen chemical was designed from the beginning to sort of address those fears around usability, around the look on the skin.

It has some of the most protective qualities of any sunscreen chemical, but it’s not white. So, there’s that. And it is designed to really not seep into the bloodstream, to sit on the skin, to really just be very chemically and cosmetically elegant. So that’s been around for a while, and it’s been used for a while. It’s new for us here in the U.S., and it’s kind of exciting that we’re finally getting it.

BRODIE: Well, I mean, based on your description, it sounds pretty great. Why is it that we’re only getting to use it now?

SCATURRO: Well, it’s kind of complicated, but I think you can boil it down to the fact that in the U.S., sunscreen chemicals are considered over-the-counter drugs. And that means they’re regulated by the FDA like aspirin or cough syrup.

And that means that for a manufacturer to get FDA approval for a sunscreen chemical, they have to take the chemical or the filter through the FDA and almost in all cases subject that over-the-counter drug to animal testing.

And that’s been the big sticking point because in Europe and in Asia and many other places, sunscreens are considered cosmetics, and I know in the case of the EU and of the UK, basically cosmetics cannot be tested on animals, and there’s an animal testing ban.

And it’s like the opposite in the U.S. The FDA was really demanding that the manufacturer of this chemical, DSM, which is a Dutch-Swiss company, that they provide animal test data. So, over the last 20 years, the FDA and this company have been going back and forth kind of talking about whether this is really necessary, and in the end, the company did supply animal test data, which was sort of what brought this chemical, BEMT, over the finish line.

BRODIE: Well, so you and I have talked in the past about how more and more Americans are being diagnosed with skin cancer. Is there a hope in the in the health world, in the in the dermatology world that having this ingredient available in sunscreen in the U.S. might help bring those numbers down a bit?

SCATURRO: I think that is the hope, because this this chemical, this UV filter, will allow manufacturers to do two things: to make sunscreens that people will really want to wear, that look good on the skin, that are less greasy, and that just like feel feel a lot better. And so that’s that’s the first piece, the the idea that people will be more willing to wear sunscreen on a daily basis.

And I think the second piece is bemotrizinol is much better at blocking UVA rays than some of the existing chemicals. Essentially, the U.S. really only had one what’s called chemical or or organic filter that could block UVA rays, and the rest were sort of UVB blocking. And so now sunscreen manufacturers in the U.S. will have another tool to sort of add to their repertoire of of tools that can really help create a more robust and chemically and cosmetically elegant sunscreen.

BRODIE: Is there a sense of which was the bigger problem here, in terms of either people not really wanting to wear the sunscreen because how of how it felt or that the ingredients in the sunscreen weren’t doing a good enough job?

SCATURRO: I think it’s very complicated because we know the CDC says that only like 12-18% of men wear sunscreen regularly. And so, I think I read somewhere that like 40% of men never wear sunscreen on their faces, bodies, or otherwise.

So, it’s not it’s not that the sunscreens we have in the U.S. are not effective, they do a great job of blocking UVB rays and to a lesser extent UVA rays, so they’re robust and they are they are safe and they are they’re good, they’re good. They’re not as good as they could be, but they were good, right?

And so with this new chemical, we will have newer sunscreens that are even better at blocking UVB and UVA rays. UVB rays are considered to be more high energy and responsible for burning. UVA rays penetrate the skin more deeply and are more thought to be responsible for aging and wrinkles.

But the problem is even if we have like these amazing new sunscreens in the U.S. like people have had for a while in Asia and in Europe, if people don’t wear them, they’re not going to work. You have to put sunscreen on your skin for it to work, right? And I think that’s been the issue.

BRODIE: Are there other chemicals that sunscreen manufacturers would like to be able to include in sunscreen sold into the U.S. that they can’t right now, but maybe think they will be able to now that this one is allowed?

SCATURRO: Well, the the first part of that question is yes, there are so many interesting and new and newly designed sunscreen filters that are already used in commerce in the EU, in Asian countries. And so, yes, there are so many chemicals, and some of them are really good.

They’re they’re different molecules basically that that are designed to not penetrate the skin at all, so they they are even safer, you could say, than some of the older sunscreen chemicals that are still used in the U.S.

And we’re never going to get them in the U.S. I think that’s that’s the takeaway, right? Because although Congress has in in two legislative acts, in two bills, essentially told the FDA to to be more open to accepting non-animal test data for for sunscreens, they were not convinced, and they were really quite unwilling to to sort of move from that position. They really wanted animal test data.

And that’s the sticking point because these the companies that tend to make these newer filters are based in Europe. DSM is one, and the other one is BASF, which is one of the largest chemical companies in the world. And I think then, on the one hand, they’re not willing to to spend the money because if they go through the process of getting a new sunscreen filter through the FDA, they really only have an 18-month exclusivity period.

And so there really isn’t the the incentive to do it. This company spends about $18 million, they told me, on on bringing the drug through the U.S., and they’ll have a very small period of time where there during which they’ll be the exclusive seller of this chemical.

And so, what the the company told me and what people in the personal care industry told me is that if we want the FDA and the U.S. government to sort of consider new sunscreen chemicals, then the makers of these chemicals and the sunscreen manufacturers will have to form a kind of coalition and sort of share the costs. And I think that’s interesting. I I get I got kind of a sense that there is an interest in doing that, but it isn’t clear to me whether there’s the bandwidth right now to bring any more — at least in the next year or so — any any new sunscreen filters through the FDA.

BRODIE: All right, that is health journalist Michael Scaturro. Michael, thanks so much, I really appreciate it.

SCATURRO: Thanks for having me.