Allison Wild

Allison Wild is the founder and Managing Director of Oxford Biosciences and its Chief Cosmetic Product Safety Assessor. A clinical pharmacologist by training, she has worked in cosmetic safety science since 2006. She read Clinical Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Oxford, completing her MSc with distinction.

At its core, a Cosmetic Product Safety Report is a scientific judgement about whether a formulation and its ingredients are safe for people under their intended and reasonably foreseeable conditions of use. Clinical pharmacology examines how substances are absorbed, distributed and metabolised, and how they act on the human body. It therefore provides the scientific framework most directly applicable to cosmetic safety assessment, integrating the chemistry and toxicology of a substance with its actual behaviour in humans.

Oxford Biosciences was founded in 2013 on a straightforward premise: that the safety assessment behind a Cosmetic Product Safety Report is a scientific judgement, not a paperwork exercise. It demands fluency in cosmetic chemistry and human physiology, together with the laboratory and product experience needed to apply both. Oxford Biosciences was built around that combination.

Since then, Allison has overseen the safety assessment of more than 63,000 products for over 5,000 brands, from single-founder studios to multinational companies. Many of those relationships now extend across successive generations of products and formulations.

The work

Allison’s day-to-day practice includes exposure modelling, toxicological risk assessment under Annex I of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009, and the reasoned conclusions that underpin Cosmetic Product Safety Reports and must be capable of withstanding regulatory scrutiny.

Her work supports products placed on the UK and EU markets and includes Toxicological Risk Assessments prepared to meet the requirements of the US FDA Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act (MoCRA), allowing brands to draw on a single scientific and regulatory team across the UK, EU and US markets.

Oxford Biosciences operates three in-house laboratories for analytical and compliance testing, and Allison has scientific oversight of the laboratory and formulation work supporting the firm’s assessments. Her practice spans every cosmetic product category and age group and includes complex questions involving inhalation exposure, nanoparticles and other areas at the boundaries of established regulatory guidance.

She leads the firm’s scientific teams in both the laboratory and the office.

Research

Allison’s scientific background is grounded in original clinical and laboratory research.

She designed and investigated a novel plant-derived therapeutic that demonstrated activity against sensitive and monoresistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in a proof-of-concept study.

As Chief Investigator, she designed and ran a clinical study determining, for the first time in humans, the absolute bioavailability of carvacrol, and developed and validated an HPLC method for quantifying phenols in human plasma to support the study.

Her published and presented work has also included the pharmacokinetics of thymol, pharmacokinetic–pharmacodynamic modelling of d-limonene as an anticancer agent, and a meta-analysis on the differential diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.

Expert witness

Where product safety questions reach litigation, Allison acts as an expert witness, instructed by solicitors acting for both claimants and defendants.

Her work is evidence-led: assessing what a formulation can and cannot plausibly cause, reconstructing failures where they have occurred, and critically examining the scientific basis of opposing expert analysis.

Her instructions have included alleged product-related injury, ingredient and packaging compatibility, and the analysis of failures involving formulations and manufacturing processes. The detail of individual matters remains confidential to the parties and their advisers.

Background and training

Allison’s route to cosmetic safety science began outside the field. She started her undergraduate studies in computer science and mathematics at the University of Toronto and was recruited by Dun & Bradstreet during the early adoption of the IBM PC XT. A first career in systems analysis and software engineering followed across international corporate environments.

She later returned to laboratory and product-development work, developing a research and formulation practice in phytopharmaceuticals and cosmetics. That work ultimately led to the founding of Oxford Biosciences in 2013.

Allison holds an MSc with distinction in Clinical Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics from the University of Oxford’s Medical Sciences Division and a BA magna cum laude from Brown University, following undergraduate study at the University of Toronto and Harvard University.

Her continuing professional development has included clinical pharmacology, clinical biochemistry, analytical chemistry, phytopharmacology and formulation science through institutions in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France and the United States.

Since 2013, she has also taught short courses in Oxford and London on compliance with the legal requirements of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009.

Professional memberships

• British Pharmacological Society
• Society of Cosmetic Scientists
• The Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association (CTPA)