The latest K-beauty craze is made from dead Americans' skin. Now it's aiming for the US.

A hot, new attractiveness care driving tens of millions of dollars in revenue about the globe is now aiming for the US market. Its different ingredient: skin from deceased Americans.

Each year, tens of thousands of Americans donate bodily tissue upon their deaths, mostly by checking a box at a motor conveyance division or through an authority made by a loved one. Over the former few years, tens of millions of dollars' value of donated skin has traveled from American tissue banks to biotech companies in South Korea, the attractiveness chief of the world. There, among another uses, it is turned into injectable attractiveness treatments.

The creator of the market-leading Korean brand stated final week it has signed a allocation agreement to current its skin-derived injection to the US market next year. It isn't apparent whether the merchandise can be sold in the US without endorsement from national regulators.

Business Insider traced the tissue provision sequence to comprehend how contributor tissue from, say, San Antonio can end up for transaction at a clinic in Seoul — and how much prosperity is being made alongside the way.

People who donate tissue "have no idea of how much prosperity is changing hands in the way of all of this," Ana Iltis, a prof at Wake Forest and erstwhile chairman of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, told Business Insider. "With tissue donation, there's a lot of prosperity at stake."

Donors and their families can't be paid for harmonium or tissue donations under US law.

A K-beauty trend

For decades, American plastic surgeons have used products made from individual tissue for skin grafts and reconstructive surgeries. That custom includes imaginative uses — specified as cartilage for a nose job or skin for a chest augmentation — although many doctors favor to use the patient's own tissue for specified procedures.

Now, skincare treatments made from individual tissue can be purchased for a few hundred dollars and administered at a med spa or dermatology medicinal center in under an hour. In South Korea, a mecca for cutting-edge attractiveness treatments, at smallest 10 biotech companies are making or preparedness to current skin-derived injections.

They are the latest generation of a care known among attractiveness obsessives as "skin boosters." Get your algorithm fair right, and your social-media feeds volition shortly be complete of before-and-afters showing off the purported benefits of these products. They portray patients, typically women and sometimes young ones, going from dull to dewy, fine-lined to smooth.

This year, the skin-derived injections are projected to create $75 myriad in revenue in South Korea, according to analysts at Yuanta Securities.

No brand is bigger than Re2O, which one dermatologist on Instagram called "the Love Potion No. 9 for cells." It accounts for between 60% and 70% of revenue in the category, according to L&C Bio, its manufacturer.

Re2O notched the equal of additional than $17 myriad in revenue in the archetypal fractional of this year, assisting sway the business to an functioning gain of concerning $11 myriad following a defeat of concerning $326,000 in the identical duration final year, L&C Bio said. It has expanded the merchandise row alongside Re2O Fine, marketed for additional susceptible skin, and is preparedness to initiate a individual fat-derived filler next year.

The business stated it sold 700,000 units of Re2O as of September. It is accessible in Singapore and China, and has been approved in the United Arab Emirates, Peru, and Thailand.

Last week, L&C Bio stated that it has signed a agreement to provision at smallest $60 myriad of Re2O to the US complete the next five years. The business additionally stated it may examine acquiring US tissue banks alongside its US allocation partner.

L&C Bio's scheme to current Re2O to the US could spark a regulatory showdown. L&C Bio has stated Re2O falls into a category of products specified as skin grafts that don't necessitate endorsement from the US Food and Drug Administration.

Some products that manufacturers assertion meet requirements to be sold under this category don't really encounter the applicable criteria, the FDA told Business Insider. The agency stated it wouldn't conversation any particular products under investigation.

"Products derived from contributor skin that have been decellularized, dried, and dirt into a powder for injection as a cosmetic 'skin booster' may lift important questions" and may have to go through a additional complex regulatory endorsement process, the agency said.

L&C Bio stated it wouldn't comment on its discussions alongside regulators.

Re2O's biggest competitor, CellREDM, came onto the South Korean market in delayed 2025. It has been specified a achievement that in the fourth ended June 30, functioning earnings for its maker, Hans Biomed, soared to complete $3 myriad following barely eking out a gain in the year-earlier period.

The tissue business

"In the individual tissue business, admission to raw materials is the lifeblood of the industry," L&C Bio's originator and CEO, Whan Chul Lee, stated in Korean in a February discussion alongside a South Korean news outlet.

For his business and its competitors, that lifeblood flows from the United States.

Roughly 90% of all the individual tissue used in South Korea is imported, according to South Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. Less than 4% of South Korean adults are registered to donate organs, and equal small donate tissue. Korean biotech companies have turned chiefly to the US, anywhere fine complete fractional of adults are registered donors.

Cadaver skin is collected in the US by harmonium procurement organizations, known as OPOs, and tissue banks. In the transplant system, skin is treated as a tissue, not an organ.

After tissue is collected, its path can vary. A nonprofit OPO frequently transfers it to an American tissue bank. The tissue financial institution pays a fee to the OPO, depending on factors akin the amount and norm of tissue recovered. The fee covers the disbursal of the tissue improvement as fine as a border that supports another programs offered by the OPO.

Tissue banks — which can be nonprofit or for-profit entities — provision contributor skin to Korean biotech firms.

Much of the US skin supplied to South Korea is used for additional traditional medicinal purposes, akin skin grafts for scorch victims. L&C Bio makes specified therapeutic products and says it prioritizes provision for them.

L&C Bio spent additional than $25 myriad on contributor skin from US tissue banks between 2023 and 2025 and $3.8 myriad in the archetypal fractional of this year, according to company filings. The business told Business Insider that a fourth of its skin provision is used to create Re2O.

Organ allocation is coordinated by a public-private alliance alongside the national government. Tissue is handled differently. It is distributed through business relationships.

The additional traditional endeavor aspects of the tissue industry have been a topic of conversation since the national law governing America's harmonium improvement and allocation scheme was enacted in the 1980s. In a scheme that relies on altruism, prosperity changing hands could power community trust, Jerold Mande, who helped compose the National Organ Transplant Act, told Business Insider.

There is small data on American attitudes toward tissue donation. A study of additional than 1,000 families of donors in the US published in a 2010 scholarly diary established small than 30% stated they idea it was satisfactory for donated tissues to be processed and distributed by for-profit companies.

Revenue from tissue, chiefly skin and bone, drove 93% of American OPO profits between 2013 and 2017, or a total of concerning $107 myriad per twelvemonth in gain at 51 OPOs, according to a study in the medicinal diary Transplantation. The Association of Organ Procurement Organizations called the study outdated, stated the prosperity collected for tissue helps prosperity another life-saving work, and objected to the study's use of the term "profit."

"Reimbursed finances go immediately rear into the organization, supporting harmonium procurement as fine as aftercare programs for contributor families specified as bereavement assistance and sorrow counseling," stated Jenny Daigle, a spokesman for the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations. Organizations must have a border and reserves to remain financially stable, she added.

Human tissue donations assistance millions of group in the US all year, including skin for scorch victims, skeletal for malignancy survivors, and eyes for the visually impaired, Daigle said.

Regenerative Biologics, a Florida tissue bank, provides all the skin for Re2O, L&C Bio confirmed to Business Insider.

Regenerative's CEO, Sandy McCann, stated her tissue financial institution acts as an intermediary, supplying skin collected by another organizations, and provides L&C Bio lone alongside skin from donors who have stated consent for global and cosmetic use. If another American tissue banks have skin that they can't use, "many times we can location it anywhere person can," she said.

Regenerative had fair complete $16 myriad in annual income in 2024 and 2025, according to reports submitted alongside a Florida regulator.

By reviewing South Korean authorities records and images of merchandise packaging, Business Insider identified two another US tissue banks, South Texas Blood and Tissue and RTI Surgical, that provision tissue for skin-derived injectable attractiveness treatments made by Korean companies.

South Texas Blood & Tissue supplies skin used to create South Korea's No. 2 brand, CellREDM. The tissue financial institution is based in San Antonio, sometimes called "Military City, USA" since of the ample armed forces basis there. Educational materials on the tissue bank's website say that contributor skin "heals patients suffering from burns or another traumatic wounds, and in reconstructive surgeries, including those hurt during armed forces service."

South Texas Blood & Tissue stated all of its tissue donors helps an average of 75 recipients. International allocation and business use are longstanding practices in the tissue industry, the collection said. Tissue contributor families have the choice to decrease cosmetic, international, or investigation use, the collection added.

"Our top precedence is to assist as fine stewards of these tissue donations, and to justify that all tissue we regain has the top effect possible," it said.

RTI, a Florida tissue financial institution that does endeavor as Evergen, stated it transfers a small amount of unprocessed contributor skin to DOF, a tissue financial institution in South Korea that manufactures the skin-derived injection merchandise Juveacell. RTI added that it is "dedicated to honoring the generosity of donors and their families."

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