The Woman Rewriting the Rules of Aesthetics: Inside Denise Dajles’ Bold Bet With Cytrellis

When Denise Dajles joined Cytrellis Biosystems, she saw more than another medical aesthetics device. There was a market gap widening in real time, driven by aging patients, rapid weight loss, GLP-1 medications and a growing desire for natural-looking results without surgery.

As CEO, Dajles is leading Cytrellis through the next phase of growth for ellacor, a first-in-class technology designed to remove skin without surgery. The product sits in a space that has long been underserved: patients with meaningful skin laxity who are not ready for, interested in or well-suited to surgical procedures, but who also need more than what traditional energy-based treatments can offer.

“Several things converged to make joining Cytrellis an easy decision. The first was the science,” Dajles said. “The founders of Cytrellis, inventors of ellacor, are some of the most accomplished innovators in medical aesthetics, and when you have a founding team with that level of pedigree and scientific credibility behind a technology, it tells you something important: this isn’t a concept being marketed ahead of the evidence. This is a category being built on a genuine foundation.”

Ellacor uses Micro-Coring Technology to remove small micro-cores of excess skin without surgery. The proprietary hollow needles physically remove tiny portions of skin and trigger the body’s natural regenerative response. The natural-looking result is smoother, tighter skin.

The timing, Dajles said, also mattered. She points to the rapid rise of GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy, with more than 12% of American adults now using the drugs, as a major force reshaping demand in aesthetics. Many patients are losing 30, 40 or more than 50 pounds, leaving them with loose skin on the face, abdomen, arms, knees and other areas.

“Surgery can help, but it’s not accessible or appropriate for every patient. Energy-based devices can improve texture, but they can’t address the fundamental problem of excess skin. There was a gap and a huge opportunity, and it was growing,” she said.

For Dajles, the entrepreneurial challenge is not simply selling a product, but building a framework for a category many physicians and patients have not encountered before.

“Category creation is the hardest thing you can do in this industry,” she said. “With ellacor, the concept of skin removal without surgery was genuinely unfamiliar to many practitioners. You’re not just selling a device — you’re changing how people think about skin rejuvenation.”

That requires evidence, restraint and education. Dajles said Cytrellis has more than 10 clinical studies and peer-reviewed publications supporting its claims, and she sees scientific rigor as essential in an aesthetics market where overpromising can damage trust.

“We don’t market aspirationally or exaggerate outcomes. We don’t use AI-generated before-and-afters. We tell the truth about what the treatment does and the truth is compelling enough,” she said.

Physician adoption has also helped shape the company’s expansion strategy. Dajles said some doctors were already exploring body applications after seeing patients with post-weight-loss skin changes, and that real-world evidence helped support ellacor’s body indication expansion. The company currently has an international presence in Canada, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, South Africa, Japan and South Korea.

“What has genuinely surprised me is the speed and confidence with which forward-thinking physicians have embraced ellacor and how directly they connected it to the GLP-1 conversation in their practices,” she said. “They weren’t asking ‘why skin removal without surgery?’ They were asking, ‘How soon can I get trained?’”

Her leadership approach is rooted in curiosity, adaptability and commitment. Dajles said asking physicians what they were seeing in practice helped Cytrellis understand where patient demand was moving.“The questions opened doors that assumptions would have kept closed,” she said.

For entrepreneurs trying to bring disruptive technology into established industries, her advice is direct: “Say yes before you feel ready, because the moment you feel completely prepared is usually the moment you’ve missed the window. Disruption doesn’t wait for comfort,” she said. “And ground everything in evidence. Disruption without discipline becomes noise. If your innovation is real, the science will hold. If it doesn’t hold, disrupt yourself before the market does it for you.”

Dajles believes Cytrellis is still early in defining what ellacor can become, with opportunities in new indications, new markets and broader physician adoption. But she returns often to the patients: those who have lost weight, aged, tried other treatments or simply want their skin to reflect how they feel.

“When I hear from a patient who experienced significant weight loss and felt like their skin no longer reflected how they felt on the inside, and ellacor helped bridge that gap, that’s what gets me out of bed,” she said. “That’s the mission.