Big Pharma's holding cure?

[DepressedByHairLoss]

I disagree. Although Propecia doesn't do a damn thing and is largely ineffective, it's not a commercial failure at all. Merck makes millions of dollars selling Propecia to balding men who really have no other hope but to take it since there is nothing else out there, despite the fact that Propecia isn't effective at all. And if companies could make a shitload of money developing a baldness cure, then why aren't more companies/people trying? I mean, with the millions that are supposedly to be made, only Follica, Aderans, and Trichoscience (3 companies!) are even trying to come up with some sort of treatment. I disagree that baldness is not an ailment or an illness. It totally is because it ****s up many people's lives, including mine and many of the people on here. If it didn't cause such distress for so many people, then there wouldn't be forums like this one where people can vent about how hair loss has messed up their lives. And there are so many treatments out there for things that aren't even considered illnesses by any means. A woman can get breast implants won't receive nearly as big a scar as they do with a hair transplant. People can get facelifts and that's not in response to any sort of disease. Hell, people can even change genders! I think that's a hell of a lot more complex (turning a man into a woman) than regrowing hair!!
There are just too many contradictions out there for me to believe that potential cures for baldness aren't being withheld or tamped down. You can read about so many chemicals that have the potential to regrow hair yet none of them are being tested in humans. I read about all of these so-called hair loss discoveries yet the only drugs we have to treat hair loss and two ineffective drugs that weren't even developed to treat hair loss in the first place. Autologous stem cell treatments are not even illegal in the U.S. but no one is even trying them in order to regrow hair. And if there is so much money to be made with regards to a cure for baldness, then why are so few people even trying to come up with a cure? A lot of this stuff makes no sense.
And the FDA always claims to rigorously test new procedures for safety, yet they are so full of shit even when it comes to that. I have read from countless people on here how botched hair transplants have scarred and disfigured their heads, and therefore messed up their lives. Why doesn't the FDA or the government do anything to regulate this? Because it's a huge, huge moneymaker for the medical industry.
And you talk about how people would shell out more money for a hair loss cure than they would for a new car. That's a total understatement for me. I would shell out much much more than that (I would find some way to afford it) to regain the hair that I once had. Having a full head of hair is just so so important to so many people including myself, and part of the problem is that we have people out there like Larry David who just completely marginalize the condition like it's some sort of joke, when it causes such many people such emotional and mental distress and pain.

[Follicle Death Row]

It will come. I don't think we'll make it to 2020 without a cure (well I hope). It's a big step from demonstrating something in mice to humans. If everything goes smoothly it usually takes 10 years. I will say this, we know vastly more now about hairloss than we did 10 or 15 years ago.

They're hardly saturating the market here with treatments; minoxidil and finasteride, that's it. Many are afraid to take propecia and most don't stick to rogaine. There's a huge market there if someone comes up with something.
The thing about with holding a treatment is you risk someone bringing out one first and capitalising on it. It doesn't have to go through the FDA. It could come out in Asia and then everyone would be crying out for this in the Western world.

I hardly think they're pulling an Apple and leaving out some of the good shit only to include it in the next version to milk us. Then again who knows.

If you're really desperate to get something better than is on the market you might want to go after corteoxeolone 17 alpha propionate as a topical. Not sure how you'd make an appropriate vehicle with alcohol but if you have a home chemistry set you could. It's supposedly twice as effective as finasteride so at least it could take care of the androgen side of the equation.

The only real problem I currently see with Big Pharma is in how the trials are funded and run. In fact the FDA are not strict enough. The FDA are just overlooking the trials that companies are running and drugs are getting cleared that perhaps are not as safe as the statistics would have you believe.

[Follicle Death Row]

By the way, I'm pretty sure they could cause robust follicular neogenesis tomorrow if they wanted but damn they could cause cancer. We understand the Wnt pathway but trying to safely alter it is proving extremely difficult.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wnt_signaling_pathway

It has actually been postulated that those that heal quickly and well from cuts or other injuries are more likely to develop aggressive cancer as cell proliferation can rage out of control. It's an interesting concept for the medical field to explore.

[DepressedByHairLoss]

They've been exploring the WNT pathway since the early 90's yet as usual, scientists have tested on only mice and not humans. I understand the risks of cancer, yet scientists have found through plenty of studies that if the WNT is only transiently activated (and not activated for a long period of time), then cancer is not a risk. It has been discovered that stimulation of certain pathways like WNT, beta catenin, and hedgehog is a great way to stimulate hair growth, yet as usual, testing has been only relegated to mice and not humans. And as usual, some of these scientists win award after award for spending years and years just testing on mice and not giving a rats ass about human application.
I really wish that more options would be given around the world to stimulate hair growth. If there was treatment that would transiently stimulate the WNT pathway for stimulate robust hair growth, I would jump on a plane and pay whatever it costs to have it done. But no, instead we have widespread hair transplants which leave permanent scars all over your head and don't lead to any new hair growth at all. Why the **** would I want to do something like that?

[Follicle Death Row]

Absolutely agree with you on the hair transplants. Sure some of them look goog but I really don't want the scar and I actually want my hair back or more hair not simply relocating hair surgically.

It takes serious investment to get these things over the ground. It will happen but we might just be unlucky in that the technology is not another 10 years on. Got to keep the faith.

For sure there are some scientists that simply want the prestige of the award and don't care about human applications. They're not all like that thankfully.

[RichardDawkins]

Yes and no, right now people are rethinking and regenerative abilities are taking place.

Nobody needs to have a scar these days

[DepressedByHairLoss]

True, it does take a lot to get new experiments off the ground, but what autologous stem cell treatments? They are not even illegal here in the U.S. but no one is willing to try them. I've heard about bone marrow stem cells being used to activate the faulty stem cells in the scalp, thereby regenerating new hair. As I said before, autologous stem cell treatments are not illegal yet no doctor is even trying them. They're too busy making money off of these archaic scarring hair transplants. True about 'keeping the faith'; I have to otherwise I'll wind up six feet under in my despair. At least people like Drs. Cotsarelis, Cooley, and Greco are looking for cellular methods to regenerate hair. And with regards to getting a lot of these discoveries off the ground, most of them have not even been 'attempted' to be applied to humans. Noggin, BMP inhibitors, cyclosporine, laminin-511, none of these have even attempted to be tested on humans. Unfortunately it is all about money, and people like us with genetic disorders that we cannot control have to suffer.

[Follicle Death Row]

Well Histogen are seemingly going down the Wnt pathway route. Aderans are looking to give us back healthy cells by multiplication of working cells. Many ways to skin a cat. Regenerative medicine is about to explode over the next 10 years. We can grow bladders in a lab from a sample of tissue half the size of a postage stamp. The whole rejection issue will be eradicated. They've also grown and transplanted a windpipe. Blood vessels and heart valves are possible. Within 5 years we'll have the first patients to get a new lab grown kidney, pancreas or liver. Within 10 years hair too, no question. Even if it's not for our cosmetic wants initially, burn victims would benefit massively from such a break through.

10-15 years ago when they said "5 years" they really had no clue. The science is now there.

[DepressedByHairLoss]

What really frustrates me is that growing a bladder, transplanting a windpipe, and growing a kidney is so much more complex than growing hair, yet no one has been able to grow cosmetically viable hair yet. I applaud companies like Histogen and Trichoscience for the work that they're doing, yet I'm a bit skeptical of Aderans. They're using their procedures in conjunction with transplantation and we all know that transplantation causes permanent scarring. They're affiliated with Bosley and we all know what a shitty reputation Bosley has. A lot of people 'in the know' say that growing hair is 'extremely complex' yet of course they're going to say that. If the industry as a whole hasn't either developed an effective treatment or created a cure for something, of course they're going to give some excuse, such as 'its a very complex issue', as to why we don't have any effective options to regrow hair. As I've said so many times before, it is just extremely inexcusable that in today's day and age (where we're regrowing fingers and having sex changes for God's sake!) that all we have are such shitty options like Rogaine, Propecia, and hair transplants. It's unbelievable to me that with all the money to be made from regrowing hair (I'd fly around the world and spend a ridiculous amount of money to regrow my hair), we only have a very small handful of people trying to cure hair loss. That's just very fishy to me. We really have the technology to offer much better options than Rogaine, Propecia, or hair transplants. I have heard of other potent stem cells being injected in the scalp to stimulate hair regrowth. Scientists even found a way to stem cells embryonic-like qualities so that they would function like did in an embryonic state and thereby not have any defects like the defective stem cells we have that cannot produce full hair anymore. People should really be trying this stuff NOW! I know plenty of people who would NEVER get a hair transplant yet we just jump at the chance if a more effective solution arose. I read a statistic once where only like 5 percent of men who are losing their hair attempt to treat it by buying Rogaine or Propecia, or going for a hair transplant. That is so understandable since today's options are such utter garbage and don't do much of anything. It's just really inexcusable and perplexing that we don't have better options to treat hair loss today.

[Losing_It]

@DepressedByHairloss,

From your posts I can see that its been really difficult for you to lose your hair. I am hoping just like you that something does come out within the next 5 years, and just like you I am willing to spend whatever needs to be spend on real regrowth.

I do have to disagree that hair loss (MPB) is a genetic fault. I am no palaeo-anthropologists but I do know a few of them since I am in a related field. Our species evolution has generally been towards lesser body hair. Lets be honoust here, our species survival does not depend on scalp hair. Ok lets look at it this way, humans have been anatomically modern for only the last 100k years, 99% of that time we had a pretty low life expectancy, not to many people over 50 years of age. Unless you were going to be a norwood 6/7, you would still have had some hair at age 50, if you made it that far.

The interesting question for me is what genetic mutations occurred during the last 80 thousand years that led certain populations to be more prone to balding than others?

I have to agree that big Pharm are only concerned about managing diseases rather than curing them. Nothing against the hard working scientists who try there best.