SunSense Junior SPF50+ suncare delivers on its sun protection claims
Douglas Pharmaceuticals and Ego Pharmaceuticals said consumers can be assured that SunSense Junior SPF 50+ sunscreen
delivers its certified label claims of sun protection values.
An article in the December issue of Consumer NZ has claimed that SunSense Junior SPF 50+ suncare was one of a number of
products that did not deliver its stated label SPF values, according to testing the magazine commissioned.
“We have strong evidence that gives us the confidence to stand by the quality of our product and absolutely reject the
article’s claims,” explains Douglas Pharmaceuticals’ managing director, Jeff Douglas.
Mr Douglas says his company was surprised and concerned at the results from Consumer NZ’s testing.
“Ego Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of SunSense Junior, immediately sent samples from the same batch of product to an
independent laboratory. This testing showed that the product achieves much higher values than SPF50+ and, therefore, we
stand by the label claims.”
Dr Kerryn Greive of Ego Pharmaceuticals states that, “This result is consistent with the vast number of SPF tests that
were conducted during product development.
“The Ego Pharmaceuticals’ manufacturing facility in Australia is licensed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)
with all our sunscreen manufacturing methods fully validated in compliance with the requirements of Good Manufacturing
Practices (GMP). This ensures the quality and reproducibility of our processes,” says Dr Greive.
Mr Douglas states: “We strongly believe that Consumer NZ’s testing results are not representative and we are very
disappointed that the magazine has chosen to go ahead with publication despite telling us earlier they were satisfied
with our latest test results. We believe this article is misleading to consumers.
“Consumer NZ itself has stated that Ego and Douglas have provided evidence that their products had been tested on human
subjects and this evidence supports their label claims. Based on the results of retesting provided to Consumer NZ, the
magazine has also stated that it is satisfied that SunSense will meet its label claim. Ego has now retested all batches
of the product in question and all samples are compliant with claims.
“We support Consumer NZ’s view that sunscreens should be regulated by the Government’s medicines regulator, Medsafe, as
a therapeutic device. We do not, however, believe the magazine’s testing was accurate in this instance.”
Ends