An Auckland skin care company is making big claims for an anti-ageing product, developed after years of university research that could also help make injections less common.

Snowberry's new anti-wrinkle skin care product went on sale on Wednesday, and general manager Greg Billington said its initial stocks were almost sold out by the end of the day.

Production was being ramped up and he expected the face serum would be sold into the US and China within two to three weeks.

Snowberry said the anti-wrinkle serum "may be the most effective yet known". It was created following four years of research in conjunction with the University of Auckland.

The serum had undergone a gold standard pharmaceutical-level trial by the Dermatest dermatological institute in Germany. It was only the second time any skin care brand had carried out such a trial, Snowberry said.

The results showed Snowberry's serum was 31.6 per cent better at reducing wrinkle volume than the US market leader, Snowberry said. It outperformed a placebo by 55.7 per cent.

Pharmaceuticals scientist Dr Darren Svirskis said the university research had found a way of making a formulation that delivered peptides to skin cells.

"The peptide we have worked with to date is active in healing wounds. If you look at closing up a wound, or getting a sore to go away it will be helpful with that," he said.

The formulation was found to boost the levels of collagen and elastin - proteins necessary for skin health - in the skin.

"We were able, in both cell lines and human skin, to see that the nano-formulation transported the peptide into the skin, delivered the payload into the cells and that a biological response was elicited," Svirskis said.

Potentially the same sort of technology could be used for vaccinations, rubbing them onto the skin rather than having to use a needle to get them into the body.

However, it was speculative whether it could be used by diabetics to deliver insulin, he said.

So far the research had looked at getting the peptides into the skin, which was wanted for the cosmetic application.

"If we can get that peptide to go through the skin and into the bloodstream, we can get it to reach any target in the body," Svirskis said.

The direction of further research into the technology was being considered.

The technology is subject to a patent application by Snowberry, which co-sponsored the research. Results of the trial into the face serum are to be presented to the World Congress of Dermatology in Vancouver in June.

For commercial reasons, Snowberry's Billington would not put a figure on how much of the serum the company expected to sell, saying only "we would like to sell lots of it".

The serum was being sold in 30 millilitre bottles for $40. Billington expected a bottle of that size would probably last a couple of months.