bimatoprost

[eqvist]

Don´t understand... Did they only se results in 50% of the group? Sounds not so awesome!

[rdawg]

Donīt understand... Did they only se results in 50% of the group? Sounds not so awesome!

Minoxidil is probably half that in terms of any kind of growth(and probably less than 5% see any significant growth on minoxidil, but that's just a guess)

50% is decent, apparently the trials are using a higher % dosage anyway so they should get more by the end.

I still think Bim will be a much better upgrade over Minoxidil, not giving any major NW7-NW1 benefit but something that will really help early sufferers.

[beetee133]

Yes, they only saw results in 50 % of the group, and in that 50%, they had a little over 20 % regrowth. It's not clear, at least to me, if this regrowth was mostly due to the increasing thickness of existing hairs. However, the last part is key, in that they say that it also increased the number of vellus hairs, as this might indicate the stimulation of brand new growth, which would certainly be a very encouraging development.

However, a couple of things to keep in mind. The formula they used is the formula used to regrow eyelashes; it has no additive ingredient to get it through the thick scalp skin so it can get to the follicles (which is where it needs to go to stimulate growth). Allergan executives have stressed this in conference calls. And it is also not nearly as strong as the new mixture that Allergan will be testing out towards the end of this year. Also keep in mind that the Allergan executive in the recent conference call said that they did see regrowth from their recent tests of the basic formulation, just not enough to move forward with in regards to releasing a product. Allergan has said repeatedly that they will only release a product if it's significantly more effective than what's currently on the market.

So, I don't know. Certainly seems promising to me, but there's so much that's unknown, it's really hard to say what will come out of all this. I definitely get the sense that maybe for the first time they're really on the right path with the discovery of the role of prostaglandins, but if we're still 10-20 years out from something that would really make a meaningful difference, I'm not sure that will be of much use to a lot of us on the forum personally.

[beetee133]

And rdawg is right that the current crop of drugs on the market have shown very little in the way of regrowth in a clinical setting. I've even seen some academic papers where they've said that they don't think minox and the others do anything at all, except in a very small portion of the population, and even then the effects are minimal. So actual regrowth in this setting is significant, even if it seems small compared to what we might ultimately want/need.

[rdawg]

Yes, they only saw results in 50 % of the group, and in that 50%, they had a little over 20 % regrowth. It's not clear, at least t

That right there is huge alone, that's far more than anything today(I believe Fin+minoxdil can hit about 10%)

anything that even just reverses vellus hairs would be huge, nothing does that guarenteed right now, Fin/min do it for a select few but from what I gather BIM actually works on the hairline to a decent extent.

The issue is it's release, it probably wont be out until around histogen's release, so here we have 2 positive solutions coming out, but still 3-4 years away!

and that stupid latisse stuff is so damn expensive its not even worth trying!(10-12$ for a 4-5 day supply!)

[Pate]

The citation to the article is:

Ulrike Blume-Peytavi, Sanna Lönnfors, Kathrin Hillmann, & Natalie Garcia Bartels, “A randomized double-blind placebo-controlled pilot study to assess the efficacy of a 24-week topical treatment by latanoprost 0.1% on hair growth and pigmentation in healthy volunteers with androgenetic alopecia,” Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Vol. 66, Issue 5, pp. 794-800 (2012).

I have paraphrased much of the information included below to avoid violating copyright laws, but not the portion contained in quotation marks:

-The stated main objective was to assess the efficacy of latanoprost on hair growth and pigmentation. Latanoprost was chosen as representative of prostaglandin F2α analogues, with the intention of proving the concept that prostaglandins may be agents that can influence hair growth.

-The study was double-blind and randomized to assess the efficacy of a 24-week topical treatment with latanoprost 0.1% on hair growth and pigmentation in volunteers.

-The subjects were 16 male volunteers, aged 23 to 35 years, presenting a recently developed frontotemporal alopecia (Hamilton stage II-III).

-The group treated with latanprost showed some results after 12 weeks and after 24 weeks, results could be seen in 50% of this study group. “At 24 weeks at the latanoprost-treated site, the density (+22%) was significantly higher compared with baseline and placebo. As vellus hairs increased on both investigational sites, the vehicle may also have stimulated hair growth.”

Any thoughts?

Latanoprost and bimatoprost are two different but related drugs.

Latan was tested on macaques with amazing results, so it seems once again we run into the issue of why human MPB is so much less responsive to treatment than in mice or monkeys.

The bim results from Allergan are disappointing but there is a silver lining. I think the comment about "we knew we could go higher" means that by the time they finished the trial they had additional toxicology data that proved bim was safe at ten times the concentration.

Unfortunately we don't know the strength of the last trial. We know there were three different strengths and that the lowest was probably latisse ie 0.03% but no idea how high they went. But it must have been at least 0.1%, maybe as high as 0.2, which would put the new formulation at 1 to 2%. Which is massive! 30 to 60 times stronger than latisse. So if that doesn't work, nothing will.

Annoying that we need to wait another year though, for the new Phase 2. Everything just keeps slipping.

[oppenheimer82]

hair growth stimulators based on pgf2alpha analogues are a done deal. the hairloss community should shift their focus on other treatments.

[beetee133]

Oppenheimer82, why do you say that? Is this based on a gut feeling you have, privileged information, or scientific studies? If scientific studies, please let us know which ones so that the rest of us can educate ourselves.

[beetee133]

Pate, you are correct that bimatoprost and latanoprost are not the same product. As the study says, latanoprost was chosen as a representative of prostaglandin F2α analogues.

I agree that the results of the trial are frustrating and that it feels as if things could be slipping away to some extent. I also agree that there is a silver lining in that they know and have known that they could go a lot higher, so we will see if that can get better results, although like you say, we will now have to wait another year to find out.

However, I think it's worth keeping in mind the results of the study I mention, which would seem to indicate that some not insignificant hair regrowth is possible with prostaglandin F2α analogues (while the study size is small and is perhaps not representative of hair loss sufferers in general as most of the test subjects were relatively young and their hair loss began fairly recently, and the study group was fairly small at around 15 participants), and that in the conference call with Allergan in which they discussed the results of this trial they did say that they had some regrowth (we of course don't know how much or if it was clinically significant, but there being some regrowth would seem to be better than there being no regrowth).

[Chris511026]

Side Effects

What are the side effects of bimatoprost? Are there really facial ageing side effects and/or heart problems?

[Chris511026]

Thread Finished

I guess this thread is finished..

[rdawg]

wouldn't it be possible to go ahead with a phase III for the lower dose and do a phase II for the higher?

I mean I would definitely buy anything that produced some kind of growth higher than min. Even from the people using the eye-lash stuff have seen decent growth/reinforcement.

I'm still interested in this stuff, but it just got setback another year!

[clarence]

wouldn't it be possible to go ahead with a phase III for the lower dose and do a phase II for the higher?

Sure, will you fund this?

[rdawg]

Sure, will you fund this?

isn't allergans a multi-billion dollar company?

you think people wouldn't jump at the opportunity to get the lower dose two years sooner?

[Chris511026]

Side Effects

What are the side effects of bimatoprost? Are there really facial ageing side effects and/or heart problems?