In February 2018 Wellbeing mailed the first issue of what would become a regular, if intermittent, newsletter. The issue ran to twelve pages, was sent to a list of patients, clinicians, supporters, and research partners across the United Kingdom, the United States, and continental Europe, and remains a useful archival document for anyone who wants to understand what the programme looked like at the start of 2018.
The first page of the issue set out Wellbeing’s working framing in language that has aged remarkably well. The work was described as research-led, focused on biological material drawn from a patient’s own biology, prepared under controlled conditions, and reintroduced via a simple intravenous infusion. The framing emphasised the body’s own repair processes rather than any claim to treat or cure specific named conditions. That framing was the result of a deliberate decision by Wellbeing’s leadership at the time, and it has remained Wellbeing’s working voice ever since.
Issue 1 introduced the leadership team. Andrew Chancellor was profiled as chief executive, with the same career story he gives in interviews today: banking, international recruitment, and a long-running personal interest in regenerative biology that eventually became a full-time role. Dr Steve Ray was introduced as Senior Consultant Scientist, with a short summary of his scientific background in stem-cell biology and secretome research. Max Lewinsohn was profiled as chairman. Wellbeing’s clinical and research partners as of early 2018 were listed, including academic institutions in the United Kingdom and the United States that were engaged in related research at the time.
The middle pages of the issue covered the science in plain language. The newsletter walked through the basics of paracrine signalling, the role of extracellular vesicles in biological communication, and the difference between cell-based and cell-free preparation approaches. The framing was educational rather than promotional. Patients reading the newsletter were treated as capable of understanding the underlying biology if it was explained carefully, which is a tone Wellbeing has maintained in all its public communication since.
A later section profiled early patient stories, anonymously in most cases, with Jimmy Graham’s named story (released in parallel) being the high-profile exception. The patient stories covered a range of conditions and were careful in their language. The newsletter did not make claims about treating specific diseases. It described what patients had experienced in their own words and let readers draw their own conclusions.
Looking back at Issue 1 from the perspective of 2026 a few things stand out. The research partners listed have evolved. Some of those relationships are still live, some have wound down naturally as research priorities shifted, and new relationships have formed. The science discussed has moved on, in the sense that the specific cell sources Wellbeing now works with are different from those used in 2018, although the underlying biological principles are unchanged. The team, perhaps surprisingly, has remained remarkably stable across nearly a decade.
Issue 1 is part of Wellbeing’s public archive. It is not currently maintained as a live document, in the sense that the specific conditions and partnerships referenced are accurate as of 2018 but not necessarily current. The newsletter remains available on request as a reference point, particularly for readers interested in how Wellbeing thought about its own work at the beginning of its modern public presence.
Subsequent issues of the newsletter, covering 2019, the early stages of 2020, and the year-end of 2020, are similarly preserved as archival documents. Each captures a particular moment in the programme’s evolution. None of them are billed as current. Together they form a useful, if intermittent, public record of how Wellbeing’s thinking has developed.