What is PDRN, and how much is actually in it?
PDRN is the ingredient Korean brands put on the front of the bottle in 2026. The interesting part is not what it is — it is how differently brands use it. We read the concentrations printed on three Korean product pages, and they differ by a factor of one hundred thousand.
Published amounts, side by side
Every figure below is printed by the brand on its own Korean product page. We have not estimated anything, and we have not found equivalent figures on the US pages.
| Product | Published amount | As a percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Medicube PDRN Pink Peptide Ampoule | 10,000 ppm | 1% |
| Anua PDRN Hyaluronic Acid Capsule 100 Serum | 100 ppm | 0.01% |
| Mediheal PDRN Lifting Toner Pads | 100 ppb | 0.00001% |
ppm is parts per million; ppb is parts per billion. 10,000 ppm is 1%, 100 ppm is 0.01%, and 100 ppb is 0.00001%.
Why the word on the bottle is not the word in the ingredient list
On the two product pages where we could read the full ingredient list — Anua's and Mediheal's — the ingredient that the marketing calls PDRN is listed as sodium DNA. That mismatch is worth knowing: if you scan an ingredient list looking for the letters PDRN, you will not find them, and you may conclude the product does not contain it.
Skincare PDRN is not a clinic treatment
The PDRN products discussed in Korean clinics are injectables, administered by a practitioner. A serum, ampoule or pad stays on the surface, and the published amounts are small. We are not in a position to tell you what a topical dose does, and neither is the label — which is exactly why the numbers above are the most useful thing we can give you.
We looked for a regulator's own description of cosmetic versus medical PDRN and could not confirm one at the source, so we are not citing a claim we could not check.
How to read a PDRN product
- Find the number. If the brand publishes a ppm or ppb figure, it is doing you a favor. All three here do.
- Convert it. ppm divided by 10,000 gives you a percentage. It usually shrinks the marketing.
- Check the source of the PDRN. Salmon-derived is the version usually described first; rose-derived and other vegan versions also exist, and one product we cover uses different sources in different markets.
- Look at what else is in the formula. The other ingredients are what you are paying for too, and in some of these products they are present in far larger amounts.
Our pages on these products
- Medicube PDRN Pink Peptide Ampoule
- Anua PDRN Hyaluronic Acid Capsule 100 Serum
- Mediheal PDRN Lifting Toner Pads
Each page lists the Korean rating data, what the brand publishes, and what we could not verify at the source.