For the Wellness Briefing, Glossy sat down with Drew Taylor, Ph.D, CEO and co-founder of Acorn Biolabs, a Canadian regenerative medicine company that turns one’s own hair follicles into stem cells for longevity- and aesthetic-focused therapies. The company is tapping U.S. doctors to scale its You secretome offering in the U.S. Additionally, functional fragrance has a new wellness player, the chief merchandising officer at CVS steps down, and Merrithew invests in emerging fitness modality gyrokinesis.Move over, peptides! Stem cell therapy has new momentum in the wellness space thanks to Acorn Biolabs, a Canadian stem cell bank-turned-regenerative medicine company currently scaling an innovative stem cell treatment in the U.S. called You.
While certainly not new, stem cell therapies have received renewed interest, and expanded business opportunities, in the past few years.
For example, in 2023, Los Angeles-based aesthetician Angela Caglia made a splash in the skin-care market when she released Cell Forte, a one-ounce serum priced at $395 that claims to brighten, firm and smooth the appearance of skin using human-derived stem cells donated by plastic surgery patients. Consumers went wild for the serum, and sales grew by 450%, propelling the indie line into retailers across the country.
