Solabia's New Lab Used to Share a Parent With Dr.G

Solabia Group's press release calls it a straightforward transaction: the French active ingredients maker has completed its purchase of Mibelle Biochemistry, the Swiss lab known for plant stem cell technology, from Spanish personal care group Persán. What the release does not mention is that this is the second time the lab has changed hands in sixteen months, and the third time a piece of its former parent company has changed owners since December 2024.

A group that used to be one thing

Mibelle Biochemistry started as a division of Mibelle Group, itself a subsidiary of the Swiss retail cooperative Migros. Mibelle Group also owned Gowoonsesang Cosmetics, a Korean dermocosmetic company founded in 1998 and best known for its Dr.G brand, one of Korea's more visible sensitive skin lines. Migros folded Gowoonsesang into Mibelle Group in 2018.

The two businesses shared a parent for six years. Then Migros began taking the group apart. In December 2024, it sold Gowoonsesang, Dr.G included, to L'Oréal, which placed the brand inside its consumer products division. Three months later, Migros sold what remained of Mibelle Group, including the Biochemistry unit, to Persán. Persán kept Biochemistry for less than a year: it announced a deal to sell the unit to Solabia on February 19, 2026, and the sale closed in early July.

What actually changes for a formula

Mibelle Biochemistry is best known for PhytoCellTec Malus Domestica, launched in 2008 as the industry's first cosmetic active built from plant stem cells, sourced from the Uttwiler Spätlauber, a Swiss apple prized for how long it keeps in storage. It appears on ingredient lists as Malus Domestica Fruit Cell Culture Extract, usually bundled with xanthan gum, glycerin, lecithin and a preservative in the supplier's standard blend.

For a formula that already lists that ingredient, the ownership change is close to invisible. Production stays at the same facility in Buchs, Switzerland. Cornelia Schürch, who has led the unit through both changes of ownership, is still in charge under Solabia. The COSMOS and NATRUE certifications the powder version carries do not reset because a shareholder changed. What does change is the legal entity behind the paperwork: the ingredient now ships under the name Solabia Biochemistry AG, a detail that matters more to a brand's regulatory file than to what is in the jar.

"Together, we are now even better positioned to support our customers with a broader, stronger and highly complementary range," Solabia chief executive Jean-Baptiste Dellon said when the deal closed.

Persán's chief executive, Antonio Somé, framed the sale in February as a matter of focus: the company wanted to concentrate on its core home and personal care business rather than run a specialty actives lab. That logic reads cleanly on its own. It reads differently once you notice how many owners a single ingredient supplier and its old sister brand have collected in under two years, and how little of that churn ever shows up on a label.

Sources: Mibelle Biochemistry · Migros