PDRN, the salmon-derived “regeneration” ingredient behind Rejuran injections and a new wave of serums, went from Seoul clinics to Jennifer Aniston’s face. Here’s what the science supports, the injectable-vs-topical gap, and the fish-free options that could change everything.
Sarah Y. Wu had seen a lot of needles by the time she flew to Seoul. A beauty journalist who tests injectables for a living, she is, as she wrote in Marie Claire last year, “fairly blasé at the sight of an approaching needle.” Even so, she balked at Rejuran, the treatment taking over South Korea that requires seven hundred separate injections to cover a single face, and that her industry colleagues kept describing as one of the most painful non-invasive procedures in existence.
TikTok had prepared her for the immediate aftermath, “a pattern of swollen bumps that resembled bubble waffles, or the aftermath of walking face-first into a swarm of wasps.” She said yes anyway. Fifteen minutes and hundreds of pinpricks later it was done, and a week on, her cheeks “gleamed like the inside of a seashell.” What she had spent the afternoon having injected into her face was, in the plainest terms, refined DNA extracted from salmon.
An unlikely wound healer
The ingredient is PDRN, polydeoxyribonucleotide, one of the most talked-about compounds in skincare and one of the strangest-sounding. Rejuran is made of PDRN, which are fragments of DNA derived from salmon DNA, the cosmetic dermatologist Y. Claire Chang told Marie Claire. Its healing reputation is older than the trend. “It was discovered by fishermen who used to put salmon semen on their wounds to help them heal faster,” the dermatologist Purvisha Patel told NBC News. “It’s almost like giving your skin blueprints to rebuild itself,” the Connecticut dermatologist Mona Gohara said in the same report.
Those blueprints have traveled a long way from the wound. First formulated in Asia around 2008 and now administered in more than two dozen countries, PDRN reached American medicine cabinets by way of Hollywood confessionals. Jennifer Aniston told WSJ Magazine she had tried a salmon-sperm facial on a facialist’s recommendation. “First of all, I said, ‘Are you serious? How do you get salmon’s sperm?'” she recalled. Kim Kardashian described getting it injected into her face on an episode of The Kardashians. The market has followed the fascination: the global business in polynucleotide injectables was worth $245 million in 2025 and is projected to hit $1.19 billion by 2033.
The catch is the gap between what PDRN can do in a hospital and what it is sold to do at a facial. “There’s real science showing PDRN can stimulate wound healing and collagen production,” Gohara told NBC, “but most of that data comes from medical use, like burns and ulcers, not beauty facials. So it’s promising, but the fountain-of-youth claims are a stretch.” The gap widens further at the serum shelf, where “PDRN” now appears on bottles you can smooth on at home. A molecule that large does not simply sink through the skin. “While topical use may offer some surface hydration or antioxidant support, the regenerative effects are typically achieved through in-office procedures that place PDRN directly into the skin,” the dermatologist Nicole Y. Lee told NBC. Gohara says a topical serum “is more like sprinkling chia seeds on your smoothie than getting a full-on protein shake.”
There are reasons for caution beyond disappointment, though. PDRN injectables are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States, which means the dermatologists offering them here do so off-label, on their own judgment. Because it is a biologic material introduced through the skin, it carries the ordinary risks of any injection, and a few of its own. “Think of it as sushi,” Gohara said. “Fresh and handled properly, fine; mishandled, and you could get very sick.” Anyone with a fish allergy, Lee added, needs careful screening first.
PDRN, hold the fish
Which brings the story to its next, almost inevitable turn: the race to make the fish optional. The squeamishness is a deterrent. “Before you get grossed out, salmon sperm is just the source,” the E! News writer Alexa Vazquez noted; “what you put on your face is a refined, purified version of it.” A wave of “vegan PDRN” products now promises the same regeneration from plants. The anesthesiologist Azza Halim confirmed to NBC that “vegan, plant-based PDRN does exist. They’re extracted from yeast, wheat germ or certain legumes.” But she was careful about the equivalence. “There’s not enough scientific evidence to support vegan PDRN yet,” she said. “The purity and molecular weight differ from fish-derived PDRN, so the regenerative effect may be less potent or take longer.” That caveat has not slowed anyone down; the trade press already expects vegan versions to outsell the salmon original.
For all the squeamishness, salmon-derived PDRN is the version with the most research behind it, Wu was pleased enough with her results that she took to texting friends daily selfies, which she admitted made her insufferable. The plant-based serums now arriving to replace the fish are easier to sell and, by the experts’ own account, less proven. Most people will meet PDRN in a bottle with a nicer-sounding label, not at the end of seven hundred needles, chasing the same promise Wu did: skin that can be told to rebuild itself.
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