What is RE20, also written Re2O?
RE20 is an injectable skin booster made from donated human skin. Its full name is Elravie Re2O. The maker writes the name with a capital letter O, Re2O, and most people search it with the number zero, RE20. It is the same product. In Chinese-language media it has the nickname 尸皮针, and the English-language press has called it a “cadaver skin jab”.
The ingredient is particulated human acellular dermal matrix (hADM). Dermis is the collagen-rich layer of skin. Acellular means the donor's cells have been removed, leaving the structural scaffold called the extracellular matrix. Particulated means it has been broken into small particles.
The maker is L&C Bio, a Korean company, and Humedix distributes it in Korea. It launched in Korea in November 2024 and has been reported as sold in Korea, Japan and Singapore. L&C Bio says its donors are in the United States, come through accredited tissue banks and consented in advance to cosmetic use, and that cells and DNA are removed. Those are the company's statements, not independent findings.
Is RE20 made from cadaver skin?
Yes, in the plain sense that the skin comes from donors who have died. L&C Bio objects to the label and describes the product as human-derived acellular allogeneic dermis: dermis from another person, with the cells removed. Whether that matters to you is a personal judgement, and a fair thing to weigh before an injection.
How the tissue is processed has its own article: is RE20 made from cadaver skin, and how the human tissue booster is made. How it differs in make-up from other boosters is in RE20 compared with Rejuran, Profhilo and Sculptra by what they are made of.
How is RE20 injected?
The published trial placed it in the mid-dermis, the middle of the dermal layer, with one injection on each side of the face. The RE20 side received 1.5 mL containing about 56 mg of particulated hADM plus 7.5 mg of hyaluronic acid. So the product tested was a mixture, not hADM alone.
That is the one protocol the trial reports. No other protocol was checked for this article.
What did the one published trial find?
There is one published human trial of this product. It appeared in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences in 2026, from a group at Yonsei University in Korea. It enrolled 20 adults, 13 women and 7 men with an average age of 54.7, between November 2024 and May 2025.
The design was split-face, randomised and double-blinded. Each person had both products, one on each side of the face, and the people involved did not know which side was which. One side received the RE20 mixture. The other side received non-crosslinked hyaluronic acid alone. Everyone was followed for 20 weeks.
On instrument readings, the RE20 side did better than hyaluronic acid alone on skin density, volume, hydration, pore area, elasticity, nasolabial fold depth and under-eye wrinkles. There were no serious adverse events. People had mild redness and swelling that did not last.
What can the trial not tell us, and what is not known?
The authors list their own limits. The sample was small. It was a split-face design. Follow-up was 20 weeks, so the trial says nothing about long-term or delayed side effects. The product tested was a mixture with hyaluronic acid, so the benefit cannot be put down to hADM alone. And many outcomes were compared without correction, which means some of the “better” results could have arisen by chance.
There are ties to declare. The test product was supplied by L&C Bio and the control by Humedix, and one author served as an adviser for the product's development.
Three things are not known. Long-term safety is not known. How long results last beyond 20 weeks is not known. And no head-to-head trial against other boosters, such as polynucleotides, poly-L-lactic acid or Profhilo, was found, so there is no evidence that RE20 does better or worse than any of them.
More data may come. A further trial is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT07155278), and the maker says it plans a larger study of 400 to 1,000 cases. It also reports about 300,000 procedures with no serious adverse events. That is a company figure, not an independent safety study.
Doctors outside the trial have raised concerns, reported by HK01 on 17 September 2026. Plastic surgeons in mainland China said products from donor skin need five to 10 years of follow-up and that clinical data are relatively lacking; that decellularisation may not remove every cell, so donor genetic fragments could remain; and that donated skin is a precious medical resource that should go to serious medical use first. These are their opinions, not findings. The company says cells and DNA are removed.
How is RE20 regulated?
In Korea. RE20 is supplied as “human tissue” under the Human Tissue Act. It is not approved as a medical device or a medicine. Korean reporting in April 2026 described this as a regulatory blind spot, because human tissue can reach clinics without the separate product approval that device skin boosters need. The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said they were reviewing supplementary measures. So “sold in Korea” does not mean “approved as a device in Korea”. If you are weighing a booster on a trip, what to check before you fly for aesthetic treatment in Korea covers the questions.
In Hong Kong. On 21 October 2026 the Department of Health seized 20 vials of Elravie Re2O during raids on four beauty premises, and a woman was arrested on suspicion of unlawful dealing in human organs and of possessing unregistered products. The details are in Hong Kong seized RE20 skin boosters: what it means in Malaysia.
In Malaysia. On 26 October 2026 we searched the Medical Device Authority's public register (data last updated 25 October 2026) for Re2O, RE20, Elravie, Humedix, L&C and acellular. There was no result for any of them. The same search does list Profhilo (hyaluronic acid), Profhilo Structura, Sculptra, Rejuran HB Plus (polynucleotide with hyaluronic acid) and a Juvelook-branded soft tissue injectable implant, so the search works. We also searched the NPRA product search, which covers medicines, for the product name Elravie and the maker L&C Bio. No result there either.
The register's own note says that when an entry does not appear, the device searched is unregistered, expired, suspended or cancelled. So the careful wording is this: on 26 October 2026 we could not find RE20 on Malaysia's medical device register or NPRA's product list. That is a search result, not a legal ruling, and we found no Malaysian ruling on RE20. A different spelling can also give a blank, which is why the registration number matters more than the name. Some clinics in Malaysia advertise RE20 boosters online. A clinic offering a product is not evidence that it is registered.
What should I ask before any skin booster?
The same questions apply to RE20 and to every other injectable. Skin boosters in general, meaning fine deposits of hyaluronic acid to improve hydration and texture, are set out on the page for skin booster injections, and the established types are compared in Profhilo, Rejuran, Skinvive and the other skinbooster types.
- Is it on the Medical Device Authority register? Search the brand name at mdar.mda.gov.my and check that the registration's validity dates cover today.
- What is the product registration number? Ask for it, then search it yourself. A registration number looks like GD11766525-217431, the format of the Rejuran HB Plus entry.
- Who will inject it? Check the doctor's registration and Letter of Credentialing and Privileging, as set out in how to check an aesthetic doctor in Malaysia.
- Is the box sealed, and will it be opened in front of you? Ask for the batch number and expiry date.
- What evidence exists for this exact product, in how many people, and for how long?
The step-by-step version of the product check is in is my Botox or skinbooster KKM approved.
Dr Ong's view
Dr Ong, 26 October 2026: “I'm really not sure of the results and I for one feel it's very icky to inject cadaver tissue.”
