Histogen Update - Spencer Kobren Speaks With Dr. Craig L. Ziering

[UK_]

man the world would be such a better place if everyone had your optimism

Too true!!

[UK_]

He is lagging the Cole interview. He said he would have it weeks back.

Are you sure you can't see or listen to the show?

Where did you hear about Follica finishing up on Phase II?

[Jundam]

I am not a religious person, but from tonight onwards I am saying a prayer that HSC comes through the Phase II trials with positive results. I had a look at their website and it says its in Phase 1, so I assume the trial is underway. I would take 57 hairs cm2, assuming they can replicate this in further trials. Beggars can't be chooses. This is way more than whats on offer these days, without having a scar, and if it can reset the clock on miniaturized follicles, like they are suggesting that would be absolutely great. Hell even resetting the clock with some regrowth is still a winner in my book.

As far as I understand, the initial study tested two formulations with both showing regrowth. There would be no reason then to think that stronger formulations can't build on the initial dosages. Like they say in science though, 1 is not a pattern. One thing is certain though, the next 6-12 months will be make or break. Either we get our hopes dashed or we get the miracle we all been waiting. Pity the world will be ending in 2012.

For arguments sake, histogen survives the clinical trials and go to market, I am skeptical about the proposed lasting rates of new follicles. I think Dr. Noughton indicated that new follicles will last the same time as the last one, if you bald at age 20, they should last for 20 year. But is it not that men only get exposed to rampant DHT after puberty. So if you were destined to be a NW6 or 7 by age 25-30, is it not true that your new hairline will only last 5 or so years. If you start at 30 or 40, the new hairs should last that long.

Basically what i am asking is whether the effectiveness of HSC will be dependent at what stage you will at a certain age. Stages 4, 5, 6 , 7 by 30 not very effective and you will need more injections or am i just talking out of my ass?

As Gail put it in a previous interview it appeared to grow hair in places where there previously was none which means it does not only revitalize active stem cells but also activates dormant ones. And as you say there is no reason to believe it cannot be compounded based on what we've learned so far. If you can activate one stem cell you can activate them all, question would seem to be how high dosage/how many treatments would be required to wake them all up. That to me means your position on the Norwood scale doesn't decide whether or not it works but rather how much it will cost.

As for the other part it's hard to know. It is possible that it simply restores the hair follicles to their pre-MPB state and then the decline starts over again at the same pace as it did the first time. I.e if you lost your hair at 20, and you entered puberty at 15, you've got 5 years before you need to return for another round of injections. If it does nothing to the receptors(for example strengthens their tolerance to DHT and other potential antagonists) this is probably the case. The choice will then most likely be between returning every five years or starting an anti-androgen treatment in combination with the HSC injections to prolong the results.

This is all guess-work I suppose. But it's logical to me. Still, nothing we can do but wait and see.

[Dasani]

WOW MY earlier post was way off in the second part lol.

the injection would basically cause new hairs to grow in an area of 4mm/2 area. That being said I think those numbers are wrong from the earlier article clipping. Dr Ziering has even posted they were achieving 57 new hairs per cm/2.

They cant really rush trials. I dont see how anyone can complain as histogen should still be able to get to market as soon as 2.5 years. Even if they hit some roadblocks as trials usually do (data collection, tweaking the formula, enrolling phase 3 etc etc) I dont see what could keep histogen from being available in 4-5 years at the furthest.

Unlike Follica, Histogen already knows their delivery system and formula works. All they have to do is refine the hsc solution or even just keep the same concentration that yielded them their initial 57 new hairs per cm/2

Aside from a safety concern from arising or histogen discovering in the phase 2 trial that the results do not have the ability to be spread over larger areas even with more injections I cant see histogen not being available within 5 years maximum withing the United States.

Going to be a lot of injections though lol. Like 250 injections to treat a 40cm/2 area. Wonder if they will charge by cm/2 area treated or what. They could just sell the formula and training to current ht doctors and any dermatologists, and plastic surgeons.

Hey CAlex I think you're a little bit off on your math there. If hair grows in the area 2mm around the injection site that means it grows in a circle pattern and the radius is 2mm. That means the area of the circle is 2*PI*R (r being 2mm). 2*3.14*2 = 12.56mm^2. Another way of stating that is 0.1256cm^2.

So if normal hair density per 1cm^2 = 200 hairs, hair density per 12mm^2 should be --> 0.1256 * 200 = 25.12 hairs per 12.56mm^2.

That means they've achieved average human hair density in the area of a 2mm radius surrounding the injection site? Wow.

[Losing_It]

@Dasani,

Lets hope they can replicate this in the current trials. Then we all set and its just a matter of price and of course safety. I am buying all the scientist involved a decent bottle of whiskey, if all goes to plan.

Does anyone know what happened with their plans to do some exploratory trails earlier this year, where they wanted to do 50 injections at baseline, to fine tune their current trials. Did that ever happen?

[Dasani]

Hey CAlex I think you're a little bit off on your math there. If hair grows in the area 2mm around the injection site that means it grows in a circle pattern and the radius is 2mm. That means the area of the circle is 2*PI*R (r being 2mm). 2*3.14*2 = 12.56mm^2. Another way of stating that is 0.1256cm^2.

So if normal hair density per 1cm^2 = 200 hairs, hair density per 12mm^2 should be --> 0.1256 * 200 = 25.12 hairs per 12.56mm^2.

That means they've achieved average human hair density in the area of a 2mm radius surrounding the injection site? Wow.

Actually I was slightly off on my math... the area of a circle is PI*R^2. But since the R happened to be 2... 2*3.14*2 is equal to 3.14*2^2. So the area measurements are the same.

This makes me wonder, maybe another treatment strategy COULD be to simply increase the proximity of the injections?

[Follicle Death Row]

I won't complain if a round of injections every 5 years does the trick as long as the cost is reasonable.

[DepressedByHairLoss]

The thing with me is that cost is not even an issue. I'm not rich and I don't have a decent job but I will find some way to afford it. I would give anything for hair regrowth and I will travel anywhere. If we had an effective option out there, I'd be all over it. As many people on here know, I refuse to get a hair transplant since I don't want permanent scars or marks all over my head for the rest of my life, not to mention a lifelong commitment to Propecia especially since I feel its giving me side effects. So yeah, cost was never an issue for me or something that I'm worried about. If a non-invasive WNT treatment cost the same as a traditional hair transplant and was available, I'd be absolutely all over it, no question.

[RichardDawkins]

Ok lets play this through for once ok.

Assume every three years (just in case) you have to pay around 5000 Dollars for a full head injection. Assume you are 30 years old and you live for lets say until you are 75. This means 35 years divided through 3 makes around 11 sessions a 5k is around 55.000 US Dollars.

And now compare this to something like HST. For around 55.000 Dollars you would get around 5 session a 2300 Grafts, which will make 11.500 Grafts on your head which are solid.

Also in the HST case you would need around 6 years and you are done but with HSC you will need it to fix it up every three years.

But i wont complain like SPanishDude hre because i am happy for every possible option we could have

[UK_]

In addition to hair-stimulating complex, Histogen is deriving products for skin care and post-laser surgery healing and dermal filler for other wound-healing applications. For hair loss, the hair-stimulating complex is injected into the scalp at the level of where the stem cells are known to be, Naughton says. “What we've found is only a 0.1 cc injection of our material, a one-time injection, creates 25 new hairs within about 2 mm of the injection site. And the hair not only continues to grow during the first year, but at the two-year follow-up, it continues to be present.”

“It looks as though we're seeing brand new follicles because hair is coming out of the scalp where none was noticeable before,” she says. Even so, it's possible that the treatment energized dying follicles rather than truly creating new ones. Naughton can't be sure how long-lasting the stimulated hair growth is with Histogen's product. “We are told by stem cell experts that once you stimulate stem cells and either reinvigorate a dying follicle or create a whole new follicle, the effects should last as long as the follicles originally lasted in your head. So if you started losing your hair at age 25, hypothetically you should have that new follicle around for another 25 years.” Of course, the only way to know for sure is to follow patients for that long, she says.

As to safety, no issues arose in the first trial. A second phase 2 trial will test two sets of injections of the hair-stimulating complex in 50 patients in Singapore starting in June.

..........

[MrRyan]

This all sounds great and all, but i started thinking it may just be too late for us men in the MPB process, i mean if it works the future generation will get the benefits of this and not us. I am only just starting to see i'm losing my hair, but by the time HSC comes out my hair isn't going to look so great and i will probably have bald areas by that time which gets me down because i could have been a few years off being able to get MPB under control with HSC.

And also why don't Histogen come on here say, once a month and just let us all know how things are going instead of making us all second guess about what might or might not be happening, after all it's just good business to let potential customers know what is going on.

[Dasani]

It's crazy how emotional everyone gets around the topic of hairloss. I'd rather not think about "What if it's $5000 every 3 years?! or 'What if it's too late for us with MPB!'

We just have to wait until this winter or Q1 of 2012.

As for the $5000 every 3 years thing. Even if it were that outrageous you probably wouldn't have to get the same procedure done every 3 years for the rest of your life since inevitably something better will come along. I still have hope in aderans/follica/replicel's technique of cloning DHT resistant hairs. It's working, they've shown that much. They're getting better and better too.

Thank god human genetics give us at least some DHT resistant hairs on our heads. Imagine if MPB involved a complete loss of all hair on the head. Then we'd all be royally screwed.

[Dasani]

This all sounds great and all, but i started thinking it may just be too late for us men in the MPB process, i mean if it works the future generation will get the benefits of this and not us. I am only just starting to see i'm losing my hair, but by the time HSC comes out my hair isn't going to look so great and i will probably have bald areas by that time which gets me down because i could have been a few years off being able to get MPB under control with HSC.

And also why don't Histogen come on here say, once a month and just let us all know how things are going instead of making us all second guess about what might or might not be happening, after all it's just good business to let potential customers know what is going on.

Hey with Propecia/Finasteride you have a ~90% chance of not losing any hair or even regaining some for 5 years. I know there's a lot of talk out there surrounding the possible side effects. I've been using finasteride (1.25mg) for about 3 months now and I have had 0 side effects... so as long as this keeps up I hope it's effects last me until HSC or something else comes along.

[Cory]

Why will only future generations benefit from HSC, guys in safety trials didn't get bald over night and they did regrow hair from one injection it's too soon to make any assumptions about efficency and price.

We still don't know how long hair will last, neither does Histogen, and even if first treatment costs $5000, next one for keeping hair probably won't cost that much.

And what is Follica doing, topical, injection? I read that something about lithium gel.

[lost.hair.lost.youth]

Idk if this is right but according to this conversion chart I found on the web it says 40 cm is about 16 in long so a 40cm^2 section would be 16in by 16in.... Idk how big ur head is but that should cover it

No! That is wrong.

40 cm is different from 40 cm^2.
6 cm by 6 cm is 36 cm^2
The same principle goes for inches.


I know this is terribly imprecise but, assuming you have a small frame and corresponding sized hands, 1 cm^2 is about the size of the nail of your small finger, the palm of your hand (excluding fingers) is about 70 cm^2.

And by the way, the average-full-head-of-hair person has about 100 hairs per cm^2.

I don't care how many injections you have to take, that is irrelevant for me. The important is that it works and if I can afford it.

http://www.histogen.com/aboutus/news_events.htm#25

I don't get one thing, on the legend bellow the pic they say the baseline is 179 and they got +73% hairs. But on the graphics the baseline starts at 230?!!!


My stupidity led me to lose my hair. If I had started fin or minox 10 years ago I would probably had a full head of hair (or maybe if I had been unlucky I would be impotent... who knows).
I'm tired and desperate.
In the next weeks I'll be investigating FUE. The good, the bad, and what I can expect of it.