Dr. Cotsarelis New Discovery that may finally cure Baldness (June 3rd, 2013)

[Desmond84]

Hmmm, Hariri all those 3 links use the Nature Medicine article as their reference!

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vao...l/nm.3181.html

They also mention that these new findings were conducted in mice...they still need to conduct a small human trial to test for efficacy!

So the first step is to culture dermal γδ T cells in a lab and then get them to produce lots of FGF-9 in order to inject them into patient's scalp.

This is a very recent finding...I really doubt they would have conducted a Phase 2 trial on this stuff back in 2010, but I may be wrong

[UK_]

Articles about Follica Breakthrough...

1- http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2013/0...dness-therapy/

2- http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new...ess-2013-06-03

3- http://www.follicabio.com/news/folli...stigationi-44/

Thanks for that, I noticed how you put the xconomy one at the top lol - probably the most insightful IMO.

[UK_]

Hmmm, Hariri all those 3 links use the Nature Medicine article as their reference!

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vao...l/nm.3181.html

They also mention that these new findings were conducted in mice...they still need to conduct a small human trial to test for efficacy!

So the first step is to culture dermal γδ T cells in a lab and then get them to produce lots of FGF-9 in order to inject them into patient's scalp.

This is a very recent finding...I really doubt they would have conducted a Phase 2 trial on this stuff back in 2010, but I may be wrong

No they dont, they're just not discussing in any detail their human trials, they wont even tell people where they're being conducted, here:

Xconomy:

Follica said in its statement that it has already done preclinical tests that combine devices it has created to disrupt the skin with several unspecified “known and novel drugs.” It also claims to have run “a series” of human clinical trials, including a mid-stage study that has caused new hair follicles to be produced in humans. Unfortunately for our rabid readers, however, Olle and Follica aren’t offering many details from these studies, other than to indicate that the platform is proving to work so far and that the research has paved the way for the company’s next step: to try a specific device configuration with a specific, well-known and studied drug (meaning it wouldn’t have to be as extensively tested as a new chemical) in a group of human patients.

“We’ve been able to consistently show that we create substantial new hair follicles in humans, and that’s something that no other approach in hair loss as far as I am aware has been able to achieve,” Olle says. “That’s a critical step. The goal of some of those early trials has been to test the hypothesis of the mechanism that we had seen in mice.”

I really hope this sends a clear message to Aderans, because it looks like any moment Follica could come out with something which will make Aderans' decade long research agenda completely pointless. Oh well, that's what you get for dragging your feet and keeping your future customers in limbo for all these years.

To the poster before who stated this wouldnt help as the new hair would still be vulnerable to DHT, well there's an obvious procedure that would benefit from a discovery like this. If the scalp requires wounding and then an application of a certain agent to induce neogenesis then clearly, a set of 3 hair transplant sessions with 4000 grafts each should become a norm with 100% donor regeneration. A finding like this would extend the work of Dr Gho to 100% full donor regeneration and a true limitless supply of grafts that are all DHT resistant.

[Desmond84]

OK, a good friend just forwarded the Nature article to me!

This was definitely a mouse study! But here's the interesting part, when they used Doxycycline on the mice, the amount of FGF-9 expression increased by 150-fold!

Maybe this is the novel therapy Follica is going to experiment with now! Wounding + Doxycyline!

Just a thought

[Desmond84]

UK I don't know when xconomy edited their article, but they just added this in there:

[An earlier version of this story indicated that Follica used that protein, Fgf9, in its clinical trial. Olle later clarified that the protein, Fgf9, has only been involved in Follica's preclinical work so far].

So, FGF-9 never made it to human trials! It was being used in their pre-clinical studies prior to their Phae I/II trials (i.e. they only tested it in mice)...

That's OK though! They're onto something for sure

[Breaking Bald]

UK I don't know when xconomy edited their article, but they just added this in there:

[An earlier version of this story indicated that Follica used that protein, Fgf9, in its clinical trial. Olle later clarified that the protein, Fgf9, has only been involved in Follica's preclinical work so far].

So, FGF-9 never made it to human trials! It was being used in their pre-clinical studies prior to their Phae I/II trials (i.e. they only tested it in mice)...

That's OK though! They're onto something for sure

I'm not trying to highlight the negatives here, obviously this is very interesting. But if no human trials have been conducted yet, then is is likely to be 3 years or so away?

All of this hype and secretiveness is very irritating, I would prefer that they told us about amazing news closer to the time of release.

[UK_]

Articles are cropping up now.

This one also mentions WNT proteins and their relation to FGF9:

http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles...-follicles.htm

Obviously according to some forum members at TBT (bigentries) the work of Histogen into follicular neogenesis using Wnt proteins is all bunk, and the company should be starved of any financial support.

Any thoughts bigentries? Any thoughts?

[bigentries]

Articles are cropping up now.

This one also mentions WNT proteins and their relation to FGF9:

http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles...-follicles.htm

Obviously according to some forum members at TBT (bigentries) the work of Histogen into follicular neogenesis using Wnt proteins is all bunk, and the company should be starved of any financial support.

Any thoughts bigentries? Any thoughts?

That's a Follica article...

I don't see how Histogen failing in their Phase II results has anything to do with that article or a future Wnt-related cure

[Thinning87]

Follica are immensely secretive, it's very difficult to know exactly what they're up to, however I have never seen them come out and state in a news release they have shown human hair follicle regeneration, that is important to note.

Let me add to this that it makes sense to think that if they release news like this, there definitely is some kind of business development reason behind it, be it looking to raise more funds, or looking to partner up for commercialization, or both.

They originally raised plenty of VC money but it's hard to estimate how much of it is gone and how close to their original business plan they are at this point in time. For sure though, I think this may definitely be a good sign as it might be a sign that they are trying to raise awareness for their technology which means they believe they are on to something.

God I can't wait to hear again from them, although I wouldn't be surprised if we hear again from them in 2-3 years...

[UK_]

Let me add to this that it makes sense to think that if they release news like this, there definitely is some kind of business development reason behind it, be it looking to raise more funds, or looking to partner up for commercialization, or both.

They originally raised plenty of VC money but it's hard to estimate how much of it is gone and how close to their original business plan they are at this point in time. For sure though, I think this may definitely be a good sign as it might be a sign that they are trying to raise awareness for their technology which means they believe they are on to something.

God I can't wait to hear again from them, although I wouldn't be surprised if we hear again from them in 2-3 years...

Yeah, I get the impression these spurts of information they release every few years has more to do with gaining an extra injection of capital from investors to carry them through to their next phase. Great point.