Histogen Update - Spencer Kobren Speaks With Dr. Craig L. Ziering

[Maradona]

Weird, I tried to search for it but I didn't find it... that is the same paper though mine is better quality and not covered in those "PENALTIES APPLY" warnings. Oh well, not bothered by $15 and I am happy to support the journal publishing Histogen's results.



That is a typo, it should say there was a 123.4% increase in TERMINAL hair count, not total hair count, and a 51.2% increase in total hair count as you say. This is what it says in Ziering's presentation at ISHRS in Alaska last year, on the last page of his abstract where the same picture is shown. There are a couple of other typos in this paper too, for instance it refers to a 2mm scale bar but there is no scale bar on the pic.

Regardless, BoSox is right, this was a fluke result at this stage. The average result was much lower (30% terminal, 16% total) to the point where we really need the treatment to be compoundable to stand any hope of an effective treatment.



It's not increasing significantly, in fact statistically most of those values are well within 1 standard deviation. I suspect there is a very small, sub-conscious bias on the part of the testers. In the back of their mind they know that they are counting the 12 month results and even though they don't know if they have a placebo or a real injection, they might count a hair here and there that is borderline, or round off a thickness measurement, etc. It's nothing to worry about here because if it's less than 1 std deviation away from zero it is statistically insignificant.

The other faint possibility that has been raised before about placebos apparently working in these trials is that the wounding caused by the needle and the injection of placebo is actually trigging a small hair growth response. Wounding forms a major part of Follica's research into growing hair.



50,000 is much too high an estimate... 2mm spacing would mean 4mm between injections. Assuming there is a bit of overlap beyond 2mm you could probably get away with a 4x4mm square grid pattern, which is 2.5 injections per linear centimetre or 6.25 per square centimetre. So in a 10x10cm area you'd need 625 injections. Work out how many 10x10cm areas you'd need treatment on and that's how many you need, for me it would be about 1250. Even a NW7 wouldn't need much more than 2000 I think... of course there is no guarantee this stuff works on NW7s, it probably doesn't because the follicles are too far gone and the blood supply isn't there. All the more reason to hang onto every follicle you can while you're waiting!



Not necessarily. At any time in the balding cycle many of your hair follicles are resting. If total hair count increased, it just means that less of your follicles are resting and more are producing hair. It doesn't mean HSC created brand new follicles from scratch, or even that it reactivated dormant ones. Of course, we hope it did! But it's more likely IMO that the increase in total hair count is just because HSC stimulated some of the short-lived vellus hairs into longer-lived terminal hairs, so more of them were showing when then photo was taken.

I read that press release too, but we've since decided the language was a bit ambiguous, they didn't actually say they created new follicles from scratch, they just said they created new hairs - this may mean a dormant follicle that wasn't producing hair that showed above the skin's surface.

Does anybody know if histogen will reveal some results by june 2012? the clinical trials website says data for primary study is supposed to be completed june 2012.

I'm trying to avoid FIN at all costs...so maybe should i wait?