Lindi Skin Creates Products to Comfort Cancer Patients
Philadelphia, PA (Philadelphia Inquirer – Original Article) August 6th, 2008
“Million-Dollar P.A. Company Creates Products to Comfort Cancer Patients”
By LINDA LOYD
A few years ago, several of Lindy Snider's friends and family members were battling cancer, undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, and lamenting what the treatment was doing to their skin.
She remembers asking her good friend, the singer-songwriter Lauren Hart, who was being treated for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2000, "Why don't you ask your doctor for some cream?"
Hart's answer was, "Well, there's nothing," Snider recalls.
Perplexed that big pharmaceutical and cosmetics firms did not have a line of products geared to cancer patients, Snider, 46, began searching for information, and spoke to doctors and dermatologists.
What she found, she said, was that oncologists "don't really deal with side effects; they are dealing with your survival." Dermatologists pointed to existing "sensitive" skin-care products, which some patients find greasy, or their fragrance intolerable, or just not helpful.
In 2002, Snider, daughter of Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast-Spectacor, left her part-time job in special projects at the Wachovia Center and started a company, LindiSkin, in Ardmore to create a line of skin-care products tailored to the needs of patients going through chemotherapy and radiation. Those cancer therapies save lives, but their side effects on skin can be severe, producing acne-like rashes, dryness and sores.
Lindy Snider discussed her ideas with her fiancé, Larry R. Kaiser, a University of Pennsylvania surgeon and oncologist. She also assembled a brain trust of scientific advisers, including oncologists and dermatologists.
Hart pulled together a group of cancer patients to test the products and make recommendations on everything from texture and fragrance to packaging. The company's logo, a shield, denotes both a battle and protection.
LindiSkin sold its first products in May 2004 on its Web site. Since then, annual revenue has grown to more than $1 million, executive vice president James Kristoff said. Sales are expected to at least double next year, and the company will turn its first profit in 2007, he added.
LindiSkin makes 14 products, including a bath soak, facial wash, body lotion and face serum, "cooler" rolls to soothe inflammation, a sunscreen, eye-hydrating gel and lip balm.
The products are used in more than 50 hospitals and sold in almost 100 stores, most in hospitals and cancer centers. They are not medicines, and patients and nurses who use them say the lotions and creams are moisturizing and gentle enough to be used by anyone.
