APR (278470) is moving into Latin America's medical aesthetics market with its Medicube skin booster line. The company plans to expand beyond cosmetics and home beauty devices into medical devices, and to widen its overseas supply network using its own manufacturing facilities.
APR said on the 15th that it has begun exporting Medicube skin booster products to Latin America and will formally launch them in Chile next month. Some volumes have already been shipped to the market, and the company will hold a pre-launch event in Santiago on the 20th for about 300 attendees, including local medical professionals, clinic operators and influencers. The event will also include a certificate presentation for the company's official local distributor.
Two products will be introduced in Chile: AGE-R and AGE-R PLUS G. Both use polynucleotide (PN) extracted from salmon DNA, but they differ in how they are applied and in how they are classified as medical devices.
AGE-R is an adhesive transparent wound dressing applied to the skin surface, certified as a Class 2 medical device by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. AGE-R PLUS G is a biomaterial for tissue repair injected beneath the skin, and has won Class 4 medical device approval for export. APR said it will use the different characteristics of each product to address a range of demand in the local medical aesthetics market.
The company has also built up its production base in step with its overseas expansion. After formally announcing its entry into the skin booster business in the second half of 2024, APR built the third campus of APR Factory in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, to produce PN materials. It completed its manufacturing and quality control systems and the related licensing procedures, and began full-scale production in July.
APR is also hiring specialists needed for the medical device business. It is adding staff responsible for research and development, country-by-country licensing and regulatory affairs, and non-clinical testing and efficacy verification, strengthening the capabilities required to enter overseas markets.
APR plans to use Chile as a bridgehead into Latin America and expand product supply to neighboring countries. The company judged that Chile has relatively high income levels among Latin American countries and offers access to premium beauty demand. It is also working to expand skin booster distribution networks in Japan and the Middle East. In South Korea, the company is preparing for a launch while carrying out product development and licensing procedures.
"We expect Chile to become an important base for tapping into Latin America's premium medical aesthetics market," an APR official said. "We will continue to strengthen our in-house production capacity and our medical device licensing capabilities to expand our business areas in global markets step by step."