Genome & Company's Skincare Brand UIQ Expands into North America with Official Amazon Brand Store Launch

• Official debut signals full-scale entry into global markets
• Biome Barrier Cream Mist earns 'Amazon's Choice' designation

SEOUL, South Korea, May 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Genome & Company, a global clinical-stage biotechnology firm, has officially launched its skincare brand UIQ (www.theuiq.com) on Amazon, the largest e-commerce platform in the United States.

UIQ, renowned for its patented skin-derived microbiome ingredients targeting a range of skin concerns, aims to solidify its North American presence by leveraging Amazon's expansive platform and enhancing direct engagement with global consumers.

Through its dedicated Amazon brand store, UIQ now offers signature products including Biome Barrier Cream Mist (100ml) and Biome Barrier Collagen Firming Cleansing Balm (100ml). These hero products—part of the Biome Barrier, Biome Remedy, and Biome C collections—exemplify the brand's commitment to science-backed, targeted skincare solutions. Notably, the Biome Barrier Cream Mist was awarded the Amazon's Choice badge shortly after launch, in recognition of its superior quality, user reviews, and fulfillment performance.

UIQ also reported outstanding performance during its first participation in Amazon's Spring Sale (March 25–31, local time). As of 5:00 PM KST on April 1, sales had surged by approximately 1,900% compared to its average daily revenue—demonstrating significant growth potential in the U.S. market.

Customer feedback on Amazon has been overwhelmingly favorable, underscoring the product's efficacy and consumer appeal. Many reviewers praised the mist for being "glow-boosting without feeling heavy" and expressed enthusiasm for "discovering a K-beauty brand genuinely committed to skin science."

This successful debut is regarded as a strategic milestone in UIQ's global expansion roadmap. To further strengthen connections with international consumers, UIQ recently launched official Instagram and TikTok accounts. With TikTok serving as a highly influential platform among North American Gen Z audiences, the brand plans to roll out influencer-driven campaigns and viral content to amplify product awareness and engagement.

"This Amazon launch marks a significant milestone in UIQ's global expansion and reflects our commitment to integrating advanced biotechnology with high-performance skincare," said a UIQ spokesperson. "With strong product efficacy and a bold marketing strategy, we are aiming to achieve top category rankings during Amazon's Prime Day."

UIQ is a skincare brand developed by Genome & Company, Korea's leading microbiome research and development firm. Harnessing proprietary functional microbiome ingredients, UIQ offers tailored product lines including the Barrier line for hydration and skin barrier support, the Remedy line for calming care, and the Vitamin C line for brightening and spot correction, each designed to address specific skin concerns with precision and efficacy.

SEOUL, South Korea, May 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Genome & Company, a global clinical-stage biotechnology firm, has officially launched its skincare brand UIQ (www.theuiq.com) on Amazon, the largest e-commerce platform in the United States.

UIQ, renowned for its patented skin-derived microbiome ingredients targeting a range of skin concerns, aims to solidify its North American presence by leveraging Amazon's expansive platform and enhancing direct engagement with global consumers.

Through its dedicated Amazon brand store, UIQ now offers signature products including Biome Barrier Cream Mist (100ml) and Biome Barrier Collagen Firming Cleansing Balm (100ml). These hero products—part of the Biome Barrier, Biome Remedy, and Biome C collections—exemplify the brand's commitment to science-backed, targeted skincare solutions. Notably, the Biome Barrier Cream Mist was awarded the Amazon's Choice badge shortly after launch, in recognition of its superior quality, user reviews, and fulfillment performance.

UIQ also reported outstanding performance during its first participation in Amazon's Spring Sale (March 25–31, local time). As of 5:00 PM KST on April 1, sales had surged by approximately 1,900% compared to its average daily revenue—demonstrating significant growth potential in the U.S. market.

Customer feedback on Amazon has been overwhelmingly favorable, underscoring the product's efficacy and consumer appeal. Many reviewers praised the mist for being "glow-boosting without feeling heavy" and expressed enthusiasm for "discovering a K-beauty brand genuinely committed to skin science."

This successful debut is regarded as a strategic milestone in UIQ's global expansion roadmap. To further strengthen connections with international consumers, UIQ recently launched official Instagram and TikTok accounts. With TikTok serving as a highly influential platform among North American Gen Z audiences, the brand plans to roll out influencer-driven campaigns and viral content to amplify product awareness and engagement.

"This Amazon launch marks a significant milestone in UIQ's global expansion and reflects our commitment to integrating advanced biotechnology with high-performance skincare," said a UIQ spokesperson. "With strong product efficacy and a bold marketing strategy, we are aiming to achieve top category rankings during Amazon's Prime Day."

UIQ is a skincare brand developed by Genome & Company, Korea's leading microbiome research and development firm. Harnessing proprietary functional microbiome ingredients, UIQ offers tailored product lines including the Barrier line for hydration and skin barrier support, the Remedy line for calming care, and the Vitamin C line for brightening and spot correction, each designed to address specific skin concerns with precision and efficacy.

** The press release content is from PR Newswire. Bastille Post is not involved in its creation. **

Genome & Company's Skincare Brand UIQ Expands into North America with Official Amazon Brand Store Launch

HANGZHOU, China, April 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A team led by principal investigators Bobo Dang and Ting Zhou at Westlake University/Westlake Laboratory reported in Science a high-throughput platform for engineering fast-acting covalent protein therapeutics. Their work, titled "A high-throughput selection system for fast-acting covalent protein drugs," opens new avenues for next-generation biologics.

Covalent small-molecule drugs have shown great success in cancer therapy by forming irreversible bonds with their targets. This has inspired efforts to extend covalent strategies to protein therapeutics, especially engineered miniproteins. However, their development is limited by a kinetic mismatch: Miniproteins are rapidly cleared in vivo, whereas covalent bond formation is typically slow. In addition, high-throughput platforms for systematically optimizing covalent protein reactivity have been lacking.

To address this challenge, the researchers proposed that precise spatial positioning of chemical warheads within protein scaffolds could enable molecular preorganization, thereby accelerating covalent bond formation without increasing intrinsic reactivity (Fig. 1).

Based on this concept, the team developed a high-throughput platform that combines yeast surface display with chemoselective protein modification to screen diverse crosslinkers and millions of protein variants. By optimizing warhead placement and the local chemical environment, the platform enables rapid and irreversible target engagement.

Using this platform, the researchers developed a covalent antagonist targeting PD-L1, termed IB101. Structural analysis revealed that IB101 forms a defined binding pocket that precisely positions the warhead in a reactive conformation, greatly accelerating covalent bond formation. Functionally, IB101 effectively blocks the PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint pathway and demonstrates strong antitumor activity in mouse models. Notably, despite its short in vivo half-life, IB101 achieves durable target engagement and tumor suppression, outperforming conventional antibody-based therapies under comparable conditions.

The platform was further applied to cytokine engineering, leading to the development of a covalent IL-18 variant, IB201. This engineered cytokine rapidly forms a covalent interaction with its receptor, enhancing signaling strength and duration. In vivo studies showed that IB201 induces potent antitumor immune responses without detectable systemic toxicity. These results highlight the potential of covalent engineering to improve the efficacy and safety of cytokine-based therapies.

Beyond immunotherapy targets, the platform was also applied to develop a covalent inhibitor targeting the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2. This molecule achieves durable viral neutralization, demonstrating the versatility of the approach across different therapeutic modalities.

This study establishes a general strategy for engineering fast-acting covalent protein therapeutics. By enabling covalent bond formation on timescales compatible with rapid in vivo clearance, the platform overcomes a fundamental limitation in the field.

These findings provide a new framework for designing biologics with both rapid kinetics and sustained target engagement, with broad implications for cancer immunotherapy, antiviral therapy, and beyond.

Media Contact: 

Chi Zhang
media@westlake.edu.cn 
+86-15659837873

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Fast-Acting Covalent Protein Drugs From a New High-Throughput Platform