BioRestorative Therapies, Inc., a clinical stage company focused on stem cell-based therapies, today announced that it has entered into a five-year exclusive supply agreement with Cartessa Aesthetics, LLC (“Cartessa”), a leading North American based aesthetic company focused on delivering best-in-class technologies and unparalleled end-to-end professional customer support.
The goal of this transformative agreement is to combine BioRestorative’s deep cell-based biologics experience, and formulation and clinical manufacturing expertise, with Cartessa’s extensive professional aesthetics market reach, and marketing and distribution capabilities. BioRestorative also intends to explore the potential of expanding the collaborative relationship into a broader family of commercialized biocosmeceuticals and therapeutics via Investigational New Drug (IND)-enabling studies, with the aim of pioneering U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approvals in the emerging biocosmeceuticals space.
As part of the exclusive five (5)-year agreement, BioRestorative has agreed to supply pre-set minimum quantities of finished vials of its initial cell-based biologic commercial product to Cartessa annually as private label under Cartessa’s Chronos ExoCR mark. This product, formulated and manufactured by BioRestorative using its cGMP ISO-7 certified clean room, is comprised of a cell-based secretome containing exosomes, proteins and growth factors. This proprietary biologic serum has been specifically engineered by BioRestorative to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles and bring forth other areas of cosmetic effectiveness.
“Cartessa is known for bringing differentiated, non-invasive technologies to the world’s best aesthetic providers. To that end, we are thrilled to partner with BioRestorative to introduce a novel and proprietary cell-based innovation within this high-demand market category,” said Gabe Lubin, Founder and CEO of Cartessa. “Upon mutual consent, the companies will also pursue opportunities to bring additional cell-based biologic products to existing and new aesthetics markets, both at home and abroad. We look forward to keeping our customers and the aesthetics industry at large updated as we progress toward making state-of-the art biocosmeceuticals more widely available.”
“We believe this strategic agreement with an established aesthetics market leader like Cartessa validates our cell-based biologics platform and represents a transformative step toward our building a strong commercial engine capable of supporting profitable growth while also helping fund the continued advancement of our clinical, BRTX-100, and preclinical, ThermoStem®, pipeline,” said Lance Alstodt, BioRestorative’s CEO. “The global aesthetic medicine market size was valued at $127.1 billion in 2023, and that is projected to grow at a CAGR of 14.9% from 2024 to 2030.1 Much of this growth is related to regenerative aesthetics, and therapies containing exosomes and growth factors in particular, which have emerged as a important sub-field of the space.2,3 We see this trend continuing into the future, primarily as a result of social media driving awareness and acceptance, aesthetics service outlets proliferating globally, and new indications gaining meaningful traction. We are looking forward to working closely with Cartessa to build a significant presence for BioRestorative in this large and growing industry.”
Mr. Alstodt added, “We ended 2023 with approximately $11.1 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments in marketable securities, which did not include net proceeds of $7.6 million from the warrant exchange private placement completed in February. As a result, we are fortunate to have entered into this transformative agreement with Cartessa while in the enviable position of already having cash runway well into 2025. This, combined with the meaningful revenues we expect from the commercialization of Chronos ExoCR, should make us significantly less reliant than most of our clinical-stage life sciences company peers on the capital markets going forward.”
