The Memphis company that took honey - the oldest wound remedy on record - and bioengineered it into a sheet the FDA would sign off on.
In a wound-care clinic somewhere in the American South, a clinician unwraps a small, solid sheet, trims it to the shape of a stubborn diabetic ulcer, and lays it over the wound. It looks almost ordinary. It is not. That sheet is manuka honey, collagen, and a mineral found in bone, engineered into something you can hold, cut, and bill to Medicare. This is APIS. This is SweetBio.
The ancient Egyptians packed wounds with honey four thousand years ago. They were onto something - honey draws moisture, fights bacteria, and calms inflamed tissue. The trouble with folk wisdom is that it does not come sterile, standardized, or FDA-cleared. A jar of honey is not a medical device. Turning the second thing into the first took SweetBio the better part of a decade, and that patience is the whole story.
SweetBio was founded in 2015 in Memphis, Tennessee, out of university tissue-engineering research. The name is literal: sweet, as in honey; bio, as in the bioengineering that makes it usable in a clinic. What the company sells is not a metaphor for innovation. It is a real product that helps real wounds close, sold into hospitals, physician practices, and wound-care clinics, and covered by Medicare - the last part being the difference between a clever idea and a business.
Honey has been used since the ancient Egyptians to treat wounds. We worked to bioengineer that ingredient and deliver it in a sheet.- Dr. Isaac Rodriguez, Co-founder & Chief Science Officer
Above: the pitch in one sentence. The hard part was everything between the sentence and the shelf.
Most advanced wound products in APIS's category rely on human placental, umbilical, or amniotic tissue. SweetBio went a different route - which simplifies both the regulation and the billing.
The bee did the first draft. SweetBio handled the peer review, the FDA, and the packaging.
SweetBio is a genuine family business. The scientist figured out how to bioengineer the honey. The operator figured out how to fund it, clear it, and sell it. It helps that they trust each other - they grew up together.
The business engine. An MBA who drove SweetBio from product development through FDA clearance and into the market. She has spoken on women's entrepreneurship at the U.S. Senate and been featured across Forbes, Inc., and national campaigns. Her rule for founders: understand your claims and your pathway - word choice is monumentally important.
The scientist. A bioengineer with roughly 15 years in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and biomaterials, and more than a thousand academic citations. He named the flagship product APIS, after Apis mellifera - the honeybee. Named to Memphis Top 40 Under 40 and a NASA Langley Hispanic Heritage Month keynote speaker.
Two people, one lab bench, and a family last name on the founding documents.
Diabetes - the leading driver of chronic wounds - hits communities of color hardest. SweetBio, woman-led and Latinx-founded with Puerto Rican roots, built its mission around that gap: patients first, accessibility for everyone, and forward-thinking innovation. Advanced wound care that only the well-insured can reach is not much of an advance.
We saw that the biggest need was in wound care, specifically for diabetic ulcers - and diabetes targets communities of color the hardest.- Kayla Rodriguez Graff, Co-founder & CEO
The flagship bioengineered wound product. A solid, trimmable sheet of manuka honey, collagen, and hydroxyapatite for managing chronic and acute wounds - diabetic foot ulcers, surgical wounds, and more. FDA-cleared, Medicare-covered, and free of human tissue.
The everyday complement to APIS - a daily wound dressing, Medicare-reimbursed, built for simple and cost-effective wound management between advanced treatments.
One for the hard cases, one for the daily grind. Both meant to be affordable.
Founded in Memphis out of university tissue-engineering research; graduates the ZeroTo510 medical device accelerator. Reportedly turns down a Y Combinator invitation to build in Memphis.
Wins the Memphis Magazine Innovation Award.
APIS receives FDA 510(k) clearance (K182725). The pivot to wound care is complete.
Connected to VamosVentures capital linked to Apple's Racial Equity and Justice Initiative.
CEO Kayla Rodriguez Graff presents at LSI USA '24 and appears on national podcasts discussing modern wound care.
Announces the commercial launch of APIS through Resolve Medical, followed by a national distribution partnership with BioLab Holdings.
Exclusive distribution partner for the 2026 commercial launch of APIS across hospitals, physician practices, post-acute, and DME channels.
Strategic national distribution partnership expanding the reach of APIS across the country.
Latinx-focused venture firm and investor, connected to capital from Apple's Racial Equity and Justice Initiative.
Memphis clinical site for early APIS pilots and published case work.
Return to that clinic. The clinician finishes trimming the honey sheet and steps back. Weeks from now, this wound - the kind that used to end in an amputation - will likely be smaller, then gone. The patient will keep the foot. The remarkable thing is how unremarkable it looks: a sheet, a wound, a pair of scissors. That is exactly the point. SweetBio's ambition was never to make wound care look like the future. It was to make a four-thousand-year-old remedy boring, standardized, reimbursable, and available to the people who need it most. A honeybee started this. A brother and a sister from Memphis finished the paperwork.
We're helping families and communities heal. That kind of change takes a village.- Kayla Rodriguez Graff, Co-founder & CEO