“If you cut yourself, what's the first responder?” says Rion Aesthetics CEO Alisa Lask. “Platelets—your blood.” Going off that premise, creators of Rion’s Plated Intense Serum purchase platelets from a blood bank to harness the type of exosome—an inter-cellular messenger—responsible for signaling cell renewal. With billions of exosomes per two-pump dose, Plated uses its Renewosome technology to decrease facial redness and maintain shelf stability of the serum—a challenge for stem cell-containing products. The company has the medical credentials: Rion was founded by Mayo Clinic physicians at the Van Cleve Cardiac Regenerative Medicine Program, where they discovered that exosomes play a key role in healing. The company now produces platelet-derived exosome products currently in clinical trials for wound healing, cardiology, and orthopedics, while Lask’s spinoff focuses on aesthetic applications. A 2023 clinical study found that “all patients experienced improvement in redness, skin irritation, skin tone, texture, and smoothness” with nine weeks of Plated use.