Desmond, what are you thoughts on Follica and the whole wounding treatment angle in general?
Also, I think that Des should tell us what he thinks re: treatments not just the ultimate cure. We need better treatments if only as means to bridge the time until a cure is available. The existing treatments are so lame, not only do they run out of effectiveness in long term users, they regrow next to no hair 'cept on a few lucky freaks.
Follica is a company working on physiology of wounding and its possible regenerative potentials. They trialled their first treatment (Lithium + wounding), which most probably didn't give cosmetic results back in 2009, hence the lack of published data or publicity.
Since then they've explored the reason for such shortcomings and pinpointed a protein known as FGF-9 which may have the potential to regenerate hair follicles. This is still in pre-clinical phase and will probably take as long as Tsuji's work to come to fruition. Firstly because FGF-9 has not been tested as a therapeutic agent in humans before and requires a 3-phased trial and secondly Follica has also been veryyy slow at conducting trial. Their last trial (Phase 1/2a) using lithium + wounding took well over 4 years.
Histogen will definitely help maintain and regrow your lost density by around 20%. Unfortunately, they are still many years away from a product release, late 2016 being the earliest.
Aderans is finished and Washenik's promise to continue with his research is a tactful way of keeping both sides happy (us and Bosley) in order to keep his senior position at Bosley.
Replicel will begin its Phase 2b trial in January and its final data should be release by June 2016. Hopefully by early 2017, it will become available in some asian countries if it proves to be beneficial. I personally believe Replicel may be a Finasteride alternative (i.e. maintenance)
Cosmo's CB-03-01 will begin its Phase 2 trials in january 2014 as well and we can expect a product launch by 2018 if we are lucky.
Hyundai Pharmaceuticals: Their R&D is useless to us. They're developing another 5-alpha reductase inhibitor (i.e. Finasteride). What for? Who knows!
Hygeia Pharmaceuticals: seems to have gone bust! All their operation was halted in 2010 Sad thing is they had a topical non-steroidal anti-androgen in the pipeline, which may have been better than CB-03-01
Gliamed: All operations halted in 2009! They seems to be having financial difficulties. Furthermore, AGA seems to be the last item on their agenda.
Molplex: These guys finally received a small funding for their R&D from the UK government. Their product release date is set for 2019! No information is released about what their product is or what it can do!
Incentis Pharmaceuticals: is a VERY small R&D lab with majority as academics backing it. A novel approach that hasn't been tried before and is cell-based which is exciting! They are still in the pre-clinical phase with their product release date set somewhere around 2020 if all goes well.
Dr Gerd/Lauster: They are currently developing a microchip technology and have shelved their hair multiplication technology.
That's all the treatments I could think of apart from Tsuji. All in all, there are treatments in the pipeline that will help with maintenance and some regrowth, but they are some years away meaning we really have to do something about our hair today. "Finasteride micro-dosing" seems to be one option.
Replicel will begin its Phase 2b trial in January and its final data should be release by June 2016. Hopefully by early 2017, it will become available in some asian countries if it proves to be beneficial. I personally believe Replicel may be a Finasteride alternative (i.e. maintenance)
Why do you think so? Because at best they will be able to revive not completely miniaturized follicles only?
Follica is a company working on physiology of wounding and its possible regenerative potentials. They trialled their first treatment (Lithium + wounding), which most probably didn't give cosmetic results back in 2009, hence the lack of published data or publicity.
Since then they've explored the reason for such shortcomings and pinpointed a protein known as FGF-9 which may have the potential to regenerate hair follicles. This is still in pre-clinical phase and will probably take as long as Tsuji's work to come to fruition. Firstly because FGF-9 has not been tested as a therapeutic agent in humans before and requires a 3-phased trial and secondly Follica has also been veryyy slow at conducting trial. Their last trial (Phase 1/2a) using lithium + wounding took well over 4 years.
I don't get the negativity about follica. They said they have a method to consistently create new follicles in humans. I think you guys are underestimating the value of this. They are now working on optimizing a protocol that can give significant cosmetic results but they are still using the wounding method. fgf9 will also NOT need to go through all 3 phases of approval.
Desmond you are making it sound like everything that came before was a failure and a waste of time. This is not correct, they are still using similar theories and are working on how to build a reliable product from that. It's not the same.
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