Outer Bio, the bioactives discovery platform founded by US entrepreneur Michael Polansky and singer/Haus Labs founder Lady Gaga, is on a mission to push beyond the limitations of conventional skin care research.
The business, quietly established around 2020 before publicly announcing itself in August 2026, focuses on discovering and testing new approaches to skin health, namely via the company’s discovery platform, Yuna.
Yuna is an ex vivo human-skin platform that enables skin to stay alive and measurable for four weeks.
Gaga, whose birth name is Stefani Germanotta, recently revealed herself to be a part of Outer Bio’s Board of Directors alongside Polansky, who is also CEO of the company – making for a powerhouse pair seeking to shake things up.
And the work Outer Bio is undertaking is not innovation for innovation’s sake, but to meet a growing consumer demand for more effective skin care products in 2026 and beyond.
“The consumer demand for efficacious skin care and beauty products is extraordinary,” says Polansky.
“The consumer themselves does not [talk] down to [the category], they are very smart, and they know what they want.
“They can tell that they care about the difference between something that works and something that does not, and they are always on the hunt for something that works better.”
But there lies one major issue, according to Polansky, which is the “glacial pace” at which new active ingredients are being discovered.
He explains: “Trying to innovate in that world [can feel] virtually impossible.
“I think the category has used words like ‘innovate’, ‘technology’ and ‘science’ to the best of their ability, but there has been a natural limitation on what that could look like.”
So, why is this level of innovation not happening in beauty, and what role does Outer Bio have in breaking through skin care innovation’s glass ceiling?
How Outer Bio is breaking through skin care’s innovation bottleneck
Michael Polansky, CEO and co-founder of Outer Bio
Elaborating on this innovation drought further, Polansky questions why the industry has not found an active ingredient better than retinol or hyaluronic acid.
This frustration was most apparent when viewing the work Germanotta was doing with her own make-up brand Haus Labs.
Polansky explains: “I watched Stefani kind of exhaust most available options to her, and still want to go a lot harder and faster.
“It is like, okay, now you see where the natural ceiling is, and she kept asking, ‘Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I do that? Why can’t we get that data? Where does this come from?’”
Haus Labs was founded in 2019 by Germanotta, before the company
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