Yet again, a new company in South Korea has announced its intention of curing hair loss. Qstem (also called Q-Stem) is a biotech company that was formed in late 2024 and specializes in treating hair loss using stem cell technology. The startup was originally founded by faculty from the prestigious City University of Hong Kong.
Qstem has developed a proprietary technology that differentiates dermal papilla cells (DPCs) from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) for use in treating hair loss. In February 2026, the company secured 2.2 billion won ($1.5 million) in seed investment funding.
The company’s South Korean founder and CEO Ban Ki-won is a professor at City University of Hong Kong. His h-index score is a high 29 according to Scopus (and 23 according to Google Scholar). The h-index measures the productivity (number of papers) and citation impact of a researcher’s published work. Professor Ban Ki-won’s specialties include stem cell biology, regenerative medicine and cardiovascular regeneration.
Qstem (Q-Stem): New Hair Creation from hiPSCs and Dermal Papilla Cells
Qstem plans to create brand new hair follicles for implantation. According the information here and here and on their Naver blog and in this newspaper article, they describe their technology in the below manner.
“Q-Stem’s core technology involves differentiating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from a patient’s blood into dermal papilla cells (DPCs) and epithelial cells, and then forming hair follicle-like structures in vitro to induce actual hair growth.”
According to CEO Ban, while dermal papilla cells are key cells that direct hair growth, their function deteriorates easily during in vitro culture. During the research team’s progress so far, maintaining the ability to actually produce hair was a much more difficult challenge than simply increasing the hair count number.
Per CEO Ban:
“Q-Stem secured dermal papilla cells that retain hair-inducing ability through iPSC-based differentiation technology and established conditions for stable culture. Furthermore, by implementing three-dimensional interactions with epithelial cells, they created a microenvironment similar to an actual hair follicle. The core of the technology was reproducing these interactions in vitro.”
Yet another description states that the company is developing technology to secure dermal papilla cells differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells, extract growth factors secreted by these cells, and commercialize them.
In animal models, the research team from Q-Stem has already managed to create in vitro hair with repeated normal growth, regression, and resting cycles.
Per CEO Ban, the fact that the growth cycle was maintained implies that it is closer to a functional hair follicle (versus just a one-time structure). The company seems confident that their in vitro hair manufacturing technology has reached biological maturity from the perspective of tissue regeneration.
Q-Stem’s Three Platforms for Tackling Hair Loss
Based on this technology, Q-Stem is expanding its platform in three directions:
- Dermal papilla cell culture medium.
- In vitro hair manufacturing.
- Dermal papilla cell-based therapy.
This is a bit confusing, perhaps due to translation. CEO Ban has emphasized that these are not separate businesses, but rather a single regenerative medicine technology platform. It seems like different technologies will be used depending on your stage of hair loss.
According to reader “Theo” who e-mailed me about this company, the three stages are as follows per his interpretation from other sources:
- Dermal papilla liquor (cosmetic shampoo per the photos on their blog).
- Dermal papilla cells (similar to Epibiotech).
- In vitro production of hair follicles using hiPSCs (Stemson or Yunce approach).
South Korean laws are very strict when someone wants to use stem cells/hiPSCs. Per “Theo”, every company must build or have a partnership with someone that has a proper CMO facility for producing stem cells.
Qstem is currently establishing a mass production process for dermal papilla cell culture medium. In addition to the earlier mentioned blog, the company has a basic Instagram page with limited information at present.
