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My bad I meant to put associates afterwards. I remember reading Desmond saying they can solve it soon but thinks it wwould not be available for another 8-10 years...I'm assuming cause of the trials. I'm hoping that we can crowdfund it and have it go through japan.
@liba I feel the same way, I'm just trying to help in anyway so we can end this misery.Comment
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This is something I've never come close to understanding. I don't know if I'm missing a vital aspect to what you guys mean when you say this, but it seems like a case of groupthink to me.
How would a "1 or 2 time cure" not be profitable for a company to invest in?
Let me just do some very average arithmetic here using statistics I've located online that are as recent as 2014. Please correct me if my math seems off.
Okay. Assuming you are in fact talking about a "cure" I'm going to include the millions of women who suffer from hair loss. The combined number of men and women in the U.S. with hair loss would be (roughly) 55 million. According to this website (statisticbrain.com), less than 1 million people worldwide seek "professional treatment" for their condition. This is obviously a direct result of the fact that hair loss medication is a grossly under-served market, as we know, with finasteride and minoxidil as still the 2 leading non-surgical FDA approved treatment options.
This is where a lot of assumptions must me made, but stick with me. Say you have a "cure" that you can offer in two tiers: 1 tier would be able to bring a Norwood 5/6 all the way back to a NW 1. This would cost $10,000. Since many people would not be able to afford this, there is a tier 2 option as well. This will certainly work, but not to the degree of tier 1. It will cost $5,000. Now assume that since this treatment is so great, the majority of middle/ upper-class working Americans will be willing to pay for it. Say, conservatively, that 70% of all people would be willing to pay for either of these "cures." So an average of $7,500 per treatment x .7(55M) = $288,750,000,000. Almost $300 billion for a very, very reasonably priced one-time treatment option. And that's in the United States alone.
Seriously guys..what am I missing?Comment
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I have to admit this is the most mysterious thing in the hair loss treatment industry. It is not just a difficulty faced by one-time treatment. As we know there have been probably a hundred or more different kinds of treatment that supposed to join the game, ever since the 90s. (I can instantly name 10 of them.) But despite the fear of side effects, the failure of respondence, the eagerness for more choices of the hair loss population, what we got is still just fin, min, dut. This is ridiculous considering that even acne has more available treatments than hair loss, despite that the latter can be a more significant cosmetic problem in many cases.Comment
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A treatment like Fin costs around 50 USD per month, lets say the average person uses it for 30 years. Then that person spends 18.000 USD on the treatment during his lifetime. I and many others would easily pay more than 18k for a cure, but I am also certain that any company would prefer lets say "only" 10k USD upfront instead of 18k during 30 years (10k => 18k with less than 4% yearly interest over 30 years), and also not having the cost of manufacturing the product for the coming 30 years.
In other words, its obvious that a cure is worth more than a treatment for a company.Comment
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@trouse idk. I was just reading that article and that point stuck out to me, especially since Dr Lauster can not get funding. When these new treatments come out they are usually higher. Maybe that initial surge of money, plus the X amount of continuous use, gives them more profit. But I'm just speculating. Remember those aren't my words, that is one of the leading hair researchers stating that. She sees and deals with that type of stuff, so She knows more then us about pharmaceutical and how they work. I dont care to discuss that matter though. Its been talked about for years. Some believe they want a cure others don't. I just want to work on something productive, and that is crowdfunding. Get Dr Lauster the proper funds he needs to solve our problem. And even if it doesn't solve it right away, we just gave the most knowledgeable researcher more funds. It can only be beneficial to us, and will cost everyone about a dollar. Why wouldn't we try it.Comment
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I wouldn't call TU Berlin a small university. Anyway, I was in Berlin last week, and while sitting in the subway, talking to my friend about balding, I notice and ad from the Charite hospital, asking for people to register for a clinical trail related to hair loss. I took a picture of the add with my phone, but unfortunately the pic is too blurry to read. Maybe we have some members here in Berlin who can check out the ad? I'm quite sure it was on the U8.Comment
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Truthfully I never looked up how big TU was, I seen someone say it was small university. But I looked it up now and you are right, it's about 31,000 students. Yeah their is also a German forum where you can ask. But Did you try contacting the hospital?Comment
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I heard it is one of the four biggest universities in Berlin. Anyway is it Lauster team's company? http://www.tissuse.com/Comment
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@liba I never looked it up until yesterday and seen it is pretty big and a very good school. And i believe that's his website. They talk about multi-organ chips and animal testing, so I believe it is. I remember Desmond saying they were suppose to start a website last summer but it never got done, at least I never saw it or seen anyone post about it. So this could be the website Desmond spoke about. I'm going to email them now asking if they work with Dr lauster, an update on the lab grown follicles, and if crowdfunding would help in anyway.
Btw if you read the about us it says that dr Marx is the head of the “Multi-Organ-Chip” program in the Institute of Biotechnology at the Technische Universität Berlin. So I'm pretty sure it is their websiteComment
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Yeah they also have a youtube channel, and they referred to Gerd Lindner in a comment.
I totally support the crowdfunding idea, but sometimes I feel desperate... I can imagine that when we try to crowdfund a company, we have to decide the way how the money is considered(donation, debt, stock), and there would be legal things that needs to be straighten up. If we wanna actually persuade them into doing the trial in Japan to get as fast as possible for the public as Hellouser et al suggested, there would be much negotiation to do. All these needs the dedicated collaboration of professional members, but yet we cannot even succeed in starting up the organization, if you know what happened.Comment
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What is the URL of the German forum? Maybe they know something more. I didn't call the hospital since a) I don't live in Germany, and b) if I would just call to the general number of the hospital the person answering that phone would have probably no idea about a clinical trail happening somewhere in the hospital. The ad for the clinical trail had a specific phonenumber and website.Comment
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Was the German forum you mentioned http://www.alopezie.de? I had a look there, but they had not so good news from Dr. Gerd Lindner from TU Berlin: http://www.alopezie.de/fud/index.php/t/27109/
Google translate is not perfect, but you'll get the gist:
Dear participants,
Dear interested our planned study hair,
Today I want to thank you for your patience and continued interest and excuse me that long time no notifications were sent to the planned study on hair cloning.
Despite the positive course of the continuously conducted research on the technology of hair cloning, even after great efforts in the negotiations with potential investors of the study and at the regulatory requirements still no final breakthrough was achieved.
This means that a date for the start of the study this year, unfortunately, is increasingly unlikely, but it is still not yet completely ruled out.
To make the research content and the organizational backgrounds transparent future, in the near future a special website will be launched with the option of subscribing to a newsletter. I'm going to send you a notice.
I look forward to a speedy but hopefully working with you.
Sincerely yours
Dr. Gerd LindnerComment
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