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Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics

Ep. 71 - Brad Conlan

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Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

April, 2023

Available everywhere you podcast

From novel treatments for hair loss and microinflammation to fat grafting and breast reconstruction, something transformative is unfolding at Bimini Health Tech, and CEO Brad Conlan is here to tell us about it.

Standing squarely at the vanguard of autologous innovation — using an individual's own cells in the name of regenerative aesthetics — Bimini seeks to marry convenience and performance with technologies that stand to reshape the way we think about aesthetic treatments.

With decades of experience in regenerative medicine, Brad offers an insider's look at everything from exosomes to stem cells and stromal vascular fraction.

Tune in to find out how Bimini is unlocking the regenerative power of the human body with autologous, personalized medicine and what the future holds for this exciting segment of the aesthetic market.


Full Transcript

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Hi everyone, Dr. Grant Stevens here, and I wanna share with you our next meeting where we're gonna be filming, and that's April 19th in Miami at the Aesthetic Innovation Summit. This will be our fourth meeting of ais. And we're gonna have a terrific time. The schedule is packed with experts from around the country and actually even around the world.

So I encourage all of you to go ahead and register for AIS 2023 in Miami, Florida. See you there.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Voiceover

Planning to attend AIS? Technology of Beauty listeners can save 200 off the cost of registration with our special VIP rate. To redeem this offer, go to attendais.com and use promo code TOB at checkout.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Technology of Beauty, where I have the opportunity to interview the movers and shakers of the beauty business.

And today is no exception. Today I have Brad Conlan from Bimini, Bimini Health Technologies. Bimini what?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Bimini Health Tech.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Bimini Health Tech, who's flown in from Chicago to tell us about Bimini and a little bit about himself. So welcome to the South Bay. Welcome to Manhattan Beach and the technology of beauty, Brad.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Dr. Stevens, thank you for having me.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Well, Brad, if I get to call you Brad, why don't you call me Grant.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Deal. Let's do it. Sounds good.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

So thank you and Diane for coming in and sharing your time with us. I'd like to start by getting to know you and where you grew up. So where were you born?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

So I was raised in rural Iowa and then went to school at the University of. And quickly figured that I need, need to leave. And actually moved out to California about 16 years ago. And went to San Diego and started working for one of the first stem cell startups, Cytori Therapeutics, I think I was employee three or four there, and watched that go up and go public and was part of the R&D team and fell in love with regenerative medicine and biotherapies along the way.

And, and then 2012, 2013, I can do this. Raised money and I bought chunks of, of the company. Of the same company. The same company. And it was the genesis for all of Bimini and everything we're doing was those first pieces of Cytori that we acquired.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Okay, so hold on. I want to go back to university. What was your major? I was a bioengineer. And you graduate the degree?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

A bachelor's degree. Bachelor's degree in bioengineering, I went to usc got a master's degree in bioengineering.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

So you lived here in, in the Southern California.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Commuted back and forth LA to San Diego.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Okay. And you got your Master's in bioengineering?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Master's in bioengineering.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And then from there you went back to San Diego?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Went back to San Diego, working for Cytori the whole time, doing grad school and working for this, this fledgling stem cell company cuz I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to be part of something like that.

And along the way got married to my wife who's a PhD biochemist. So bioengineering and biochemistry is in our blood and frankly, something we talk too much about, every day.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

You bought portions of Cytori. And then you bought the whole thing? Or how, what, how does Bimini relate to these portions of Cytori?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Yeah, so, so it, we thought about Bimini. We had come through 10 years of the hype and hope of stem cells and regenerative medicine and companies maybe going public a little too early, and raising money on the promise of it. And along the way they had developed some products that were really practical and good, like Puregraft, which is fat grafting technology.

And so we acquired that and then we took a flyer on the Cytori technology for hair growth. And so what we did was basically from the bench, I've been self-funding it all the way through phase two. So basically what you're doing is you're taking a small aliquot of your fat, isolating it, and we inject in your scalp a specific dosage, grow some hair. So that's, that's the genesis of Bimini is those pieces we bought from Cytori.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

So let's go back a little bit. Bimini. I have a Bimini top on one of my boats. What's Bimini and what's that about.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

It's a little bit of history, so we thought about. Regenerative medicine, maybe how it's over branded. And we thought about the ability to heal yourself and it quickly turned to the Fountain of Youth. And if we could just turn ourselves into the Fountain of Youth and we looked up all these different locations for that Fountain of Youth. And Bimini Island was one of those places. And so, gave birth to Bimini Technologies.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Was Ponce de León there in Bimini?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Maybe for a minute, we'll see.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Looking for the fountain of youth. So that's the derivation of Bimini. That's right. Bimini Island. And are you still based on adipose-derived stem cells or what?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

We're hedging our bets across all of it. So Bimini's become more of a targeted biotherapy company, meaning if it's autologous and involves personalized medicine, we're interested. So we have fat technology, which is Puregraft. Basically moving fat from you don't want it and putting it where. Then we have a PRP technology called ProGen, and we have a good partner for that named Crown Aesthetics, pushing it all over the world.

And then we also have our stem cell play, which is our hair growth technology. We're pushing into phase three next year. And then probably most exciting is our autologous exosome therapy.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

I was gonna get through the exosomes. Keep going. So then, so tell us about your exosome.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

So that's our whole ecosystem. We spent collectively, at least with our staff at Bimini, a hundred years on adipose based therapies and regenerative medicine. And we always wondered how did the stem cells work? Is it the stromal vascular fraction or is there a drug component of those cells? And we always believe there was and we believe exosomes and microvesicles are actually what's, what's doing what we hoped it would do.

So we're trying to productize that and get it to market more quickly.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Do you think that's the only part, or do you think exosomes work alongside of proteins and other portions of the.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

We have to, well, we think, Grant, we think it's a symphony of healing. I think these, they're the conductors in the orchestra telling the cells what to do and, and calming inflammation, but also maybe growing some new tissue as well.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Okay. And when you're doing yours, is this autologous exosomes?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Everything's autologous. So what we're talking about is PRP based. And then we have a very novel technology to, in real time, create a, a therapeutic dose of microvesicles and exosomes using your own blood. So it's blood derived, blood derived.

So unlike other companies out there that are AO based where you need to grow them up, we're seeing real time.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And you're, you are in phase two studies, you said?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

No, we're in early pipeline. And so, as we go out and we get approval, we'll likely move towards a therapeutic indication, probably a compliment to our carim therapy for hair growth.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

So that's what you're gonna go after first? Augmenting the hair is the hair approaches that the fat technique. PHAT.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

I wish. It it's a combination of both. So we looked at cells only and we looked at just fat. We couldn't get the results that we wanted. So we actually found is that if you put a layer of fat tissue right and then put a layer of cells in between, that is appears to be the magic combination to grow hair.

And if you think about it, the fat is the resident layer. It's kinda like a foundation in a house. Okay? So we need to fix that first. And then what we actually do then is take the stem cells or SVF and actually inject the cells through the fat up through the scalp. And what we're doing is just creating new blood supplier food for the hair to, to basically pop back through.

So the combination of the two things are really where the magic happens.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Can you take bald people and grow hair or is it just thinning hair to get thicker?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Thinning hair to get thicker. We also see early hair losses, our. We see in the early data, the phase two data that was published, we're seeing approximately 30 new hairs per square centimeter, and that's an okay punchline.

But the real value was your existing hair gets wider, which when it comes to hair room, the follicles, the follicles themselves.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

So the diameter, when you say wider, you talking, the follicle gets wider.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

The follicle of the mature hairs get wider. Which is interesting because people think about new growth, but really the best value is making your existing hair wider because that's more coverage. So it's a combination of those two things.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Interesting. And how long you've been doing this portion of the exosomes?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Just about, at this point, around 24 months.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

What other uses do you anticipate for your exosomes?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

I think it's similar to the way we thought about SVF, at least adipose based SVF and that it's basically.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Can you explain to the listeners what SVF is?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Yeah. Sorry, don't mean to do that. It went from zero to science right there. The SVF is the stromal vascular fraction, so it's what's left over after you blow up the fat cells and remove the lipid. Those are the resonant components. The vesicles left over, the cells, all those things that.

We think are the goodies that causes all the anti-inflammation, all the new cell growth, and maybe some reduced cell death. So if you think about where those three things are useful, it's basically anywhere you have ischemia or have inflammation. And our current understanding of hair loss is that it's actually micro inflammation all over the scalp. So we think exosomes and certainly stem cells have a calming effect and let the hair maybe reestablished itself and poke back through.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

What about topical application of exosomes, or say rejuvenation of the skin?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Yeah I look at rejuvenation of the skin as a bioengineer. Anything you can do to revascularize the layers grow new blood vessels which means new blood, means new food, which is allowing the, the skin to rejuvenate. So anything that does that from inducing an injury to making new blood cells to. Just approving the overall appearance, I think is going to rejuvenate.

So that's a lot of our business. We have fat grafting. We have PRP and then we have hopefully a blockbuster stem cell or SVF technology and, and care stem. And then thing we're really excited about is the exosome technology.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And you're injecting the exosomes, correct? In terms of the scalp.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

That's right.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Do you have any plans on doing a topical transcutaneous application of the exosomes?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

I think any, it's definitely our secondary indication because just logically as a company we need to go through and do trials and to get marketing indications. But to the p. You're just moving the needle down lower.

In fact, it's probably in the same treatment. So we acknowledge the practical elements of that, but also need to get the clinical work done and get the FDA clearances to do that.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And we're talking about beauty things, and this is the technology of beauty. But I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the fact that you talked about inflammation.

You said ischemia. What about cardiac ischemia?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Cardiac ischemia. At least in, in my early background at Cytori, our two lead indications were heart failure. Which is chronic ischemia and then heart attacks, AMIs. And so we knew from then 20 years ago now that the cells from the SVF has that same effect.

In fact, it can be in the blood supply, but also injected in the heart to bring back those ischemic or dying tissues potentially back to life. For us, aesthetics is a little easier because the patients are generally healthier. The ischemia is maybe not as severe. So we thought, well, if it works in cardiac well, it should grow some hair and certainly make the skin look a little better.

So we're, we're speeding things up and using aesthetics as a way to, to get products to market quick. So that's your gateway. That's the gateway, we spend a lot of time, money, and capital trying to figure that out at c. And so when we bought the piece of Cytori, that was Care Stem, we thought, what can we do or what can we invest in that would make it really obvious that it works or it doesn't work.

And hair just bubbled to the top because you either have hair or you don't and you can run a trial and measure the follicles and measure the coverage. And the appearance besides just before and afters, so

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Right. It makes it vary of the density. You measure it.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

You can measure it, and so it's objective whether you have a hair growth or not.

And that was always the lead into all of aesthetics was, well, if we could grow hair well, we can rejuvenate skin, we can do skin tightening, we can do all these different things.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And you're commercial on this now. I mean, not the exosomes, but on the Puregraft, you certainly are.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

I mean that's, that's the method behind the madness.

Our company is a little bit unique in that we're private and there's no private equity or vc. We funded it all ourselves. And so the idea was we would've p graft the fat technology and PRP, we used the profits to that to pay for our whole clinical pipeline. So, Those two good little products have essentially paid for our SVF technology and now the development of access ops.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Can you share with me or viewers and listeners, what your gross revenue is or is that something that's held?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

No, in fact, it's great for us, so. Two years ago we were 5 million. This year excuse me, 2021 we're just about 11 million and this year will be around 16 million.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And you have no PE or venture capital money in this venture, so you're just plowing it right back in. How many employees do you have?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

We're 27. I think we're 12 last year at this time. That gives you an indication of the trend.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

So how many sales staff do you have around the country or are you doing 1099s?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

We have eight direct reps now, and then we have approximately, it fluctuates every day, grant, but yes, around thirty 1099s.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And you're generating that revenue and plowing it back into the research. And you've been doing this for how many years?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

This will, this model, this will be our ninth year.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Wow. Well, my hat's off to you.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

We control our destiny. But it's one of those things where we get called really smart and frankly stupid daily, where it's like you need to go faster, but you, but we've controlled what we're doing so far, and, and that's gonna change in the next 24 months cuz we're at a place where phase three trials and exosome launch requires significant capital.

So, That's why we're here and starting to hopefully no longer be the best kept secret in the industry.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

So are you anticipating a raise?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

We are.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And will that be VC driven?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

It depends. Before the earth crashed into the sun six months ago, we were contemplating a SPAC transaction. We got pretty far and propped the organization up to handle that, and then we decided to pull back and wait for the market to recover.

And I can't guess on that, but it's more of timing kinda one of those things where it's in our control because we've chosen to be profitable. To decide when to raise money and when to go public.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Any any threat of running out of money?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Always.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

You could always turn down some of the studies. If you had to. But you've got a pretty good run?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

We got a good run rate. I mean, for us, we generate EBITDA every year and we're actually at this place where we're finally starting to get some momentum. So our idea was to focus on aesthetics and specifically breast reconstruction, and then everything outside of that, we partner.

So, as an example, Arthrex is a huge partner of ours. So all of our fat technology Arthrex has licensed globally, and so they're driving down our costs and we're getting the value of that. But they're launching an orthopedics because for us, we thought we're not gonna build the sales and marketing machinery to go into something we don't know anything about.

So let's pick the biggest, baddest guy out there to, to sell our tech. So we've done that with Arthrex. We have a partnership with Bausch and we have a partnership with Crown who sells our PRP tech.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Sure. Walk me back through the breast recon. We talked about alopecia and hair and baldness. The first time you mentioned breast recon, walk me through that. Is that to facilitate fat transfer?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

It's fat transfer. So if you think about Puregraft which was the first product we acquired. We looked at it as an aesthetic product, but it quickly gravitated to breast reconstruction because there's reimbursement coding for.

And we found that once it was in the hospital, people just really loved it because the tissue quality's excellent. And so it's become just really this amazing product that's allowed us to do a lot of different things. So we thought, well, we should probably do more of that. And so our reman as a company is, is to add products are complimentary to p graft in the rest reconstruction space.

Complimentary with a need on an eye so that we got a rep going in there that's what else can we put in their bag? So that's another strategic thing for us this coming year, is to find that next product.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

So that would tie into the Puregraft play. Do you have plans for studies on that to facilitate the reconstruction, or are you just gonna go commercial? You have KOLs talk about from the podium.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

It's a tough road, you know?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Oh, sure it is. That's why I'm asking you the question. I'm curious. No, it's because I'm getting to the raise.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Yeah. It's reimbursed now. But it's general fat grafting. So US and all the other products that are out there are all fighting in the same code.

So our grand design, frankly, is to try to get a collection of products. And actually run a clinical trial as a whole procedure as opposed to, who's the best mouse trap? And that can facilitate a new code, new branding, and also hopefully push the, the therapy into the market faster. Because we found that frankly, there's a trinity of products and breast reconstruction, it's fat breast implant, and then an ADM or a scaffold.

But most of those surgeries involve those three products. So if you could just, we could all just work together. And actually Brandon reimburse a procedure. It can be pretty amazing.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And there's surgical, as flaps, both free flaps and local flaps and cutaneous flaps and fascia contain flaps.

And then the addition of fat to that, or even some cases implants. So it's not, it's not just one exact done, it's a combination in most cases, actually, especially now.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

That's right. We see mastectomy and then lumpectomy are great for us. The tumor is a different geometry and in those cases where an implant doesn't completely work or you need something more customizable like fat.

We really make a lot of sense. So that's how we think about breast reconstruction.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Well, that's good. Let's get back to the raise. When do you anticipate the raise? I know we don't know what's going to happen with the economy and the world.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

It's 2023 for us.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

That was what I was curious is, it's gonna be 2023. And what do you think the raise will be?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

It depends. I mean, for us we're, it's basically, do we wanna self fund the phase three Kerastem trial, ourselves. My view is no. We want to partner in for a number of reasons to add a halo effect that private equity can do, of course. But also just to speed things up, cuz it is year nine and it's time to, to start harvesting profits for some of those original shareholders.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

So your preference would be private equity.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Private equity in the event that the public market's not available or, or frankly, that's not smart to do.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

So I would, I would encourage you to also think about strategics in the form of physicians, not strategics in the form of companies. If you had an army of a hundred physicians who also invested, just taking a random number, like a hundred, you would then have a hundred disciples that you're not paying.

And they would be your best marketing. And I've seen this work. And I would encourage you to maybe take your raise and carve out a couple million bucks for the strategics physicians who would be motivated investors with their hard-earned after-tax dollars.

And let them go out there and be understand and go to the hospital administrators and go to the various people. Cause there's nothing like a band of volunteer Army, if you will. They work very hard to build their little company and so forth as food for thought. I don't know if you ever thought about it.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

We've thought about it. It's really we're a, it's like a nine year maturation process for us. Finally are at a point and that we feel like we have enough products and a good enough story and then all of a sudden it hit like, while we have a lot of products and a huge story, now we need to, to scale quickly. So, and it's a hot topic right now.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

It's a great idea. I mean, right now we talk about not just fat fat's been around for a while, but now as you're launching into exosomes, I mean Rion won the Aesthetic Innovation Summit award last year. Also, they're very prominent in the in the Octane thing down in January in Newport beach.

And exosomes. Every time I turn around, someone asked me about exosomes. And we have autologous and non autologous blood and we have fat and we have stored and we have non-store and on and on it. No one's quite sure what the delivery and the source.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

We're not. We're not either. But we're, I mean the group of us we're the remnants of Cytori that were the last people standing that are really just curious about what's gonna work. We have a unique viewpoint in that this is all we've done our whole careers, and it's around money.

So we really cared about getting it right. So we've had this existential debate for years where autologous therapies were good, but they're hard to do, hard to figure out the regulation. And then over time, allogeneic seems to have won out because it's off the shelf and, and. But our thought has always been what if you could have allogeneic consistency but be autologous in real time?

So all of our therapies are trying to marry convenience and performance, which we think is optimal because again, back to the theme we're we're, we're disciples for the body's ability to heal itself.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

How long does it take when the, after the patients have their blood drawn and the patient's sitting in the chair at the physician's office, the blood's been drawn.

To spin it down and to do everything you're talking about and your particular technology. Well, how long does that take before you could start doing the injection?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

10 minutes.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Nice. Yeah, I would've thought much longer.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

No, it's, it's speed. The technology's interesting and glad to share with you.

It's uses beads to dehydrate quickly and pulls off the things you want and don't want. So it's very, very fast back to that engineering near him of convenience and perform. That's fantastic.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Yeah, I would've never guessed that.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Well, we, we look at technologies very differently. We develop them.

We license technologies that fill a hole for us too. So we're not, we don't only just develop, we buy companies that fit our vision. And we found this core patent around concentration of exosomes, and we looked at the claim language and. That's it. They just don't know how to productize it.

And that's what we've been doing the last years. So years bought that, we bought that core patent. And when did you buy that? About 24 months ago. Interesting. Yeah, so we've been thinking about it a long time and trying to get it to a place where not only get it approved, but frankly people would buy it.

A lot of these companies, you spend so much money getting things approved that you're run outta gas at the finish line and have to sell to a strategic cuz you're outta money. So we didn't want to be in that position with this, this technology. No one wants to be in position. If you can see the, the car wreck, why not try to try to get outta the way?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Absolutely. So what other technologies within your company, within Bimini are you looking at ?What haven't you told me about for Bimini itself?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

I think we have these core technologies, which is fat processing. Blood processing, stem cell processing, and now exosomes. And what's interesting for us is coming back to your point.

What are the indications that they would be optimal for, not just on the processing side, but the removal of the tissuer cells, the processing of them, and then the injection technology and how to do it.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And what are you improving? It's all those, and then what are, what's the end point?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

I mean, the holy grail is, is not just stem cells and how you inject, but it's dosing.

Dosing is everything. And so in our hair trial as an example, we found that when we injected 40 million cells per square centimeter, people lost hair. When we injected 20 million cells, they grew a lot of hair. When we injected just fat, they didn't really grow any hair, so we actually found a sweet spot. So the old adage of more is better was not true, which was a relief to us.

There's a dose, which means it's protectable, which means you can amplify it. I mean, it's not like you, you wake up in the morning and you have a headache and you take 15 Tylenol, thank goodness. Like cells close your liver. Cells work the same way. And so that was a bit of relief because frankly, if it, if it came down to more is better, we would've stopped investing.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Well, I'm curious, as you know with more cells, it's, there's a potential for more interstitial pressure. I'm wondering does that cause asche. In terms of starling's effect, effect and so forth, you put the pressure on those vessels. There's less delivery of the blood and less oxygen is, is it not actually the dose, but is it the space occupying effect of in cramming in more of this distensible fluid we see it.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Is it true dose? It it depends. It depends on the therapy. So an example, the, the SVF technology, what we saw why is a big dose causing a problem? Is it just too much diluent or is it just too many cells? But so the trial solved that we injected five ccs no matter what, just the dose. And you changed the dose.

And what did you find? And we found that we found this peak at 20 million cells as opposed to 40. Now the next layer, remember when you control for volume, even when you control for volume, that's curious. And then the next step, we thought, well, that's not good enough. What? And what we believe is, and this is conjecture is that we're putting in all these regenerative cells as well, but there's also macrophages in there.

So you may just reach a limit that the body actually has a immune reaction at some point too. So it may, may be solved with purifying it further, but for at least the time being that looks like our dose, the across air.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Are you playing at all in the ortho space or you just abandoned that entirely?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

No, we follow HA around the world.

Meaning that if HA works in a space, fat and fat with SVF concentrated, is a great place to go. So we did some early work in France with regenerative discs. And then it went quickly into osteoarthritis after that. And so we did a phase one and a phase two, injecting four to five ccs of micro fat in the knee.

The results were great. It was Jeremy Magon and we took that and showed it to Arthrex and they were blown away by the results and they basically licensed the global rights to our, our tech. So in a lot of ways we'll think of stuff and then we'll, we'll give it to them over time.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And that generates revenue to keep your other things going. And that's why you have a positive EBITDA.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

That's a royalty stream and that does lots of other great things. Their volumes go up. So that means our cost for everything goes down as well. Cuz we have the most favored nation. I love it. Yeah, so we're trying to at some level we're on the backs of giants, but with breast reconstruction and aesthetics, we're trying to own that and go direct and spend the money in the dollars doing it the right way.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

And I applaud that. So you're in the big picture, relatively new to the aesthetic space. I know you've been nine years at this. But given your experience so far with practitioners, with industry with people like Diane and, and, and so forth, doctors and so forth, where do you see the future if you have a crystal ball here? And you're banking on the future, clearly. Where's this going?

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

I think it gets down to a place where it all becomes personalized. And it's, it's industry's job to give technology to physicians to offer personalized care to each of their patients, which is great for the patient, and frankly, probably more lucrative for the physician as well.

And so for us, we're always bridging the gap between a homogenous breast implant or an HA filler or something like that. Those are great businesses. Imagine if you could in real time make a personalized therapy for each of your patients. The company wins, the physician wins, and, and most definitely, the patient wins.

So no doubt, I think it's personalization all the way.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

Well that seems to be the theory or the theme I've heard a few times today building it around the consumer and personalization. It is certainly in skincare also, there are groups doing that.

Well, Brad, I wanna thank you very much. You came all the way from Chicago. I hope you're gonna have a good time out here in the South Bay and spend a little time here. Try to and. I look forward to following your progress. I'd love to see you at Aesthetic Innovation Summit, April 19th Wednesday before we start the Aesthetic Society meeting, the annual meeting in Miami.

And let's see if we can get you on a panel there with exosomes and so forth. And And we'll share this with industry as a perfect timing, if you wanna do a raise. And keep my idea in mind about strategic physicians also participating in your pace.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Brad Conlan

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. Thank you, Grant.

Building the Future of Autologous Regenerative Aesthetics  Park City

Dr. Grant Stevens

You're very welcome.

And thank you all for joining me in this episode of The Technology of Beauty, where we have the opportunity to interview the movers and shakers of the beauty business. And this is a new mover and shaker, and you better watch Brad closely. His company's on the rise and they're gonna be making a mark. I know they are. Watch out for exosomes. See you next Tuesday.

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