EU med-spa group launched a private-label GHK-Cu serum line in 11 weeks, end-to-end
A multi-location EU aesthetic-medicine group wanted to launch a retail-friendly anti-aging serum under its existing clinic brand. The OEM workflow took it from signed brief to first commercial shipment in 11 weeks.
Published May 15, 2026 · Anonymized customer story
Signed brief → first shipment
11 weeks
CPNP notification round-trips
1 (first-review approval)
Stability protocol
Accelerated + real-time
Locations launched
8 clinics · 2 countries
Challenge
The clinic group had 8 locations across two EU countries and wanted to extend its in-clinic GHK-Cu treatment protocol into a retail serum line sold to patients between visits. The Marketing Director had a clear positioning concept and packaging design in hand but no formulation expertise, no INCI-compliant ingredient list, no EU CPNP notification framework, and no manufacturing partner. Building this in-house would have taken 9-12 months; the marketing window for the retail launch was 6 months out.
Approach
PeptideXpo's OEM team ran the end-to-end formulation development workflow against the clinic's brand brief: GHK-Cu sourcing at cosmetic-grade purity, formulation development with a chelator-free aqueous-gel carrier, stability protocol over the typical accelerated (40°C/75% RH) + real-time (25°C/60% RH) timepoints, INCI documentation alignment with EU CPNP requirements, primary packaging sourcing (airless-pump 30 mL bottle in the clinic's brand-spec color), and finished-goods QC release. The clinic's brand designer handled secondary packaging (carton, IFU); PeptideXpo handled everything from active sourcing through finished-goods QC.
Outcome
First commercial shipment landed 11 weeks after signed brief. The product launched on schedule for the marketing window and the clinic's downstream sell-through tracked at the upper end of EU med-aesthetic retail benchmarks for first-launch cosmetic peptide products. CPNP notification was filed using documentation supplied by PeptideXpo's regulatory team and accepted on first review without back-and-forth from the relevant member state authority.
“We came in with the brand and the customer relationship; PeptideXpo brought the formulation chemistry and the regulatory paperwork. Eleven weeks from brief to first shipment is what made the marketing window, anything north of fifteen and we would have missed the launch.”