About this publication, and how it earns

What this is

Exosomal Therapy is a science desk covering extracellular vesicles and the regenerative aesthetics category built around them. It is independently published; who publishes it is set out in full.

The editorial position is straightforward. The underlying biology is real and interesting. The commercial claims made on top of it usually run well ahead of the evidence. Both of those statements can be true at once, and a publication that holds them together is more useful than one that picks a side.

We are not a clinic. We treat nobody, diagnose nobody and recommend no procedure to any individual. We sell no product, hold no stock, take no commission on any treatment, and receive no payment from any manufacturer, distributor or clinic in connection with editorial content.

Who it is for

Two audiences, and we do not write down to either. A clinically literate reader who wants the mechanism and the methodological problems stated properly. And a curious patient who has been told something confident in a consultation and wants to know how much of it is established.

The compromise we make for both is to explain terms at first use, in the term boxes collected in the glossary, rather than either assuming knowledge or omitting the substance.

How this publication earns money

Plainly, because a publication that grades commercial claims owes its readers an account of where its own money comes from. There are two revenue lines and no others.

Paid listings

Suppliers and clinics may pay to appear in the listings. A listing contains only verifiable, disclosed facts about sourcing, regulatory status and provenance. Listings are ordered alphabetically, never ranked, and every listing carries a paid label on every appearance. Where a listed party declines to disclose one of the standard fields, we publish that they declined.

A listing is not an endorsement, is not a recommendation, and cannot influence an evidence grade, an article, or whether a claim is covered. We do not offer, and will not create, a premium position, a featured slot, an ordering preference or a badge.

The science briefing

Our newsletter, the science briefing, carries one labelled sponsor line at the foot of each issue. The sponsor line is a sponsor line and nothing else. It buys no mention in the editorial content of the issue, no influence over what is covered, and no sight of the issue before it is sent. Rates are published on the rate card.

What we do not do

• No advertising network, no programmatic display, no paid search arbitrage.
• No affiliate links. Nothing on this site earns us a commission if you click it.
• No sponsored articles, advertorial, or content written or reviewed by a commercial party.
• No paid placement inside editorial, including inside comparison tables.
• No sale, rental or sharing of subscriber data.

The line that cannot be crossed

No commercial arrangement can influence an evidence grade. This is the only thing this publication actually sells, in the sense that it is the only thing readers have to trust, and it is therefore the one thing that is not for sale. We publish what we refuse at any price on the rate card, so that the refusals are as visible as the offers.

How we source what we publish

We link institutions and primary sources, not summaries of them. A claim about what a study showed is written from the study or from the guidance document that governs it, and the source is named on the page with the date it carries, so that a reader can check the same document rather than take our word for the reading. Where a reporting or testing standard exists we say which one and where it sits: the MISEV guidance from the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles for what identifies and characterises a vesicle preparation, the relevant International Council for Harmonisation guidelines for nonclinical testing, ARRIVE 2.0 for what an animal study should disclose, and the United Kingdom regulators for product status and human tissue.

Two rules follow from that and they are absolute. We publish no figure we cannot trace to a source, because an untraceable number travels further than the correction ever does; where an effect size, a sample size or a percentage would normally sit, we describe the shape of the evidence instead and say that the figure is not one we can source. And we do not source editorial content from a supplier: a manufacturer’s brochure, specification sheet, press release or internal data pack is treated as a claim to be assessed, never as a source to be repeated. Nothing on this publication is written by, with or at the suggestion of a clinic, supplier, distributor or manufacturer, and nobody outside the desk sees a piece before it publishes.

How pages are kept up to date

Every article and instrument carries a review date, and that date means a person went back over the page against its sources on that day. It is not a publication date dressed up, and we move it only when the review has actually happened.

A page is reviewed when one of the standards or regulatory positions it rests on is revised, when a study is published that bears on a grade, when a reader tells us something is wrong, and otherwise on a rolling pass through the sections. When a review changes what a page says, the change is made on the page and the date moves. When a review changes nothing, the date still moves, because knowing that a page was checked and held is as useful as knowing it was altered. Regulatory positions are the one thing we will not promise to be current on: they change without notice and by jurisdiction, so every page that touches one says to check the position with the regulator at the date you are reading rather than relying on ours.

Where editorial stops

The boundaries are worth stating as limits rather than as virtues, because each one is a thing a reader might otherwise expect to find here and will not. We give no medical advice and make no treatment recommendation to any individual, and no article or checklist decides whether a person should receive anything. We rank no clinics and score no practitioners, because assessing clinical practice needs records, outcomes and governance data we do not hold, and a ranking built without them would rank marketing. We publish no before and after images, since we cannot verify the lighting, position, expression or processing behind them. We certify, approve and accredit nobody: our checklists are informational review aids, and working through one is not a compliance determination and confers no status on anyone.

The separation from paid placement is structural rather than a matter of good intentions. Paid listings live on the listings pages, are labelled as paid where they appear, and carry any link they carry marked as sponsored, so that neither a reader nor a search engine can mistake one for an editorial judgement. A business that pays for a listing gets the listing and nothing else: no mention in an article, no grade, no place in a checklist, no influence over whether a claim it makes is covered or how. A listing is never a reason to write about a business, and the absence of one is never a reason not to. The briefing carries one labelled sponsor line at the foot of an issue, on the same terms. What we refuse at any price is published on the rate card.

Corrections

We correct errors and we say what changed. Where a grade moves, we record the evidence that moved it against the line in the original panel that named what we were waiting for. Write to desk@exosomaltherapy.co.uk with a citation and we will read it.

Our own interests, declared

A publication built around a grading device has an interest in the device looking useful, and therefore an interest in claims being gradeable. We mitigate that by using NOT ASSESSABLE where a claim cannot be tested as worded, rather than forcing it onto the scale, and every panel is public so readers can check whether we do so consistently.

We also have an interest in this category remaining interesting enough to write about. We do not think that biases us towards credulity, but a reader is entitled to know the incentive exists rather than to be told there is none.

Questions readers ask

Who publishes Exosomal Therapy?

Exosomal Therapy, which publishes independent specialist titles. This title is its science desk for regenerative aesthetics.

Do you sell products or treatments?

No. We hold no stock, take no commission on any treatment, and receive no payment from any manufacturer, distributor or clinic in connection with editorial content.

Can a company pay for a better evidence grade?

No. No commercial arrangement of any kind can influence a grade, an article, a correction or whether a claim is covered. What we refuse at any price is published on the rate card.

Do you use affiliate links?

No. Nothing on this site earns a commission if you click it, and we do not run advertising networks or programmatic display.

How do I report an error?

Write to desk@exosomaltherapy.co.uk with a citation. We correct errors, say what changed, and where a grade moves we record the evidence that moved it against the line in the original panel.