Stem cell researcher and entrepreneur Hans Keirstead is jazzing up AiVita Biomedical Inc.’s new consumer skin care product launch with a social media strategy and a new product, Root of Skin, which joins skin-care product Provoque, currently sold through authorized physicians.
“100% of the proceeds will support women with ovarian cancer,” said Keirstead. AiVita is a regenerative medicine company with a commercial skin care product line and an immunotherapy business targeting ovarian cancer, the former funding the therapeutic arm.
He said the Irvine-based company has hired Christine Oddo, founder and chief executive of Madison Lux Group in Los Angeles, to lead the marketing campaign—“She did the Kardashian [PerfectSkin] line,” Keirstead noted.
Direct-to-Consumer
Root of Skin has an eye cream, a facial serum and a tinted primer that retail for about $55 each, roughly half the cost of Provoque. The new line will launch in September.
On top of hiring Oddo, AiVita has tapped Indi to generate buzz for the new line.
The social network video platform enables third-party entities to create videos and content for “artists, brands, retailers, nonprofits, celebrities and individuals [to] connect with fans and supporters,” according to the company website. Video submissions earn Indi “buzz points” based on views, likes, followers and social media interactions.
“Indi.com is really neat, allowing consumer-generated content to create buzz for our product,” said Keirstead, who added that the first video will feature a Miss California.
Indi founder and Chief Executive Neel Grover was most previously chairman and chief executive of fashion marketplace Bluefly.com.
Keirstead said Root of Skin is a separate product from Provoque, which the company licenses from Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Caladrius Biosciences Inc. The Provoque line consists of a facial serum and eye cream.
Clinical
Keirstead said that while the company is ramping up commercialization, its focus is on developing stem cell-based cancer treatments. It has partnered with Newport Beach-based Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and is finishing up enrolling a 99-patient phase two trial for ovarian cancer.
The clinical study is financed through a $2 million Series A funding from California Technology Ventures, a Pasadena-based venture capital firm that invests in life sciences and information-technology companies. Keirstead has separately raised another $1 million from four private investors supporting both the aesthetics and therapeutic segments.
He said that having a revenue-generating arm allows him to exercise greater control of AiVita. He’s also seeking indications for skin cancer in Japan and another phase two study for brain cancer in the U.S.
“The reason for doing all this [skin care products] is to use the proceeds to treat people with cancer,” he said.
Keirstead bought back the core technology of AiVita from Caladrius early last year. The deal came after Caladrius announced it would discontinue a phase three clinical study of CLBS20, a stem cell therapy for treating advanced skin cancer.
Keirstead sold his company, then called California Stem Cell Inc., to Caladrius in 2014 for $124 million with milestones. The stem-cell therapy received Food and Drug Administration approval for a phase three clinical trial in advance of the acquisition.
Congress
The 50-year-old stem-cell researcher, who founded California Stem Cell and led three rounds of investments prior to the sale of the company, is also running for Congress. He will run as a Democrat in the June 2018 primary. The coastal-Orange County seat is held by 15-term Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.
The Canadian transplant worked for 15 years as professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the University of California-Irvine’s School of Medicine. He also founded the Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center.
“I am running for Congress because through my work in medicine and business I have learned that innovative thinking is needed to inspire change,” Keirstead wrote.
His policy positions include improving the Affordable Care Act and boosting federal funding for environmental and scientific research—naturally, that includes stem cell research.
