bimatoprost

[Pentarou]

Thank you beetee, that explains matters somewhat. Also gives insight into why the experimental users of Bim got nowhere.

[whateva]

Allergan is doing another Phase II with 10x the dose, starting Q3, data maybe late next year...

[Thinning87]

Did you get this in the show last night from Joe from Staten Island?

I really hope he was right, but let's keep in mind this is more like a rumor as of right now as we have no reliable source (no offense to Joe but given the way he presented it can only be regarded that way for now) - although I definitely hope it's true!

[whateva]

No I got it from their earnings call this morning. Not a rumor. Stated by the company.

[Thinning87]

oh awesome! Then I'm happy this is more than a rumor and I give credit to Joe for having this news last night before the information was released to the public!

Cheers now I have to go back to pretending to work...

[rdawg]

Interesting news!

was there any news on them releasing results of the previous phase though? I'd love to see the initial progress made.

I have some faith in this being a decent product, but would hope results support that.

[PinotQ]

rdawg, Here is the transcript from the earnings call:

So great question, and I'll give a little bit of background. So we had enough toxicology to get into the clinic at a dose similar to what was used topically. And so clearly, we wanted to get into the clinic as soon as possible, a, to see if there was a signal of efficacy. And then, two, should we have sufficient data that the efficacy was greater than generic minoxidil because our bar is high, we don't want to meet to a generic product then we would have jumped to Phase III. We did see a positive signal for hair growth. That's why we're going to do the additional Phase II work. And we knew ahead of time, as I had said previously, that we had the ability to grow substantially higher. So our new trials, we'll look at a dose approximately tenfold higher than we looked at previously in the same formulation. And we also have a novel formulation that may increase tissue exposure even a little bit higher than that. So just to summarize, you're correct. We did see some hair growth. So that there was a signal that it was growing hair but not to the sufficient amount that would warrant going into Phase III with the dose that we previously studied.

[beetee133]

Ha, I jumped on here as soon as I got home from work thinking I'd be the first to post the info from the conference call, but look at all this activity around the news already! Guess I'm not the only one following the bimatoprost progress closely.

At first I was pretty disappointed (actually, maybe I still am disappointed) but they did say the test dose did produce results, just not as much as they (and we!) want. Don't want to look into the specific language too closely, but this seemed kind of interesting:

"And we knew ahead of time, as I had said previously, that we had the ability to grow substantially higher."

Also, I guess it's good that the next trial should be coming up soon. Guessing it will probably be completed near the end of 2013 (?). Even if so, hard to say when the results will be posted (we had to wait awhile for these results).

What do you guys think? Is this OK news, or bad news from your perspective?

[StayThick]

Thanks Pinot for posting the response.

But it seems every viable treatment is years away from market. It's exhausting just thinking about how long we all have to wait just to try new treatments outside of Propecia/Minoxidil.

This treatment along with Histogen, Aderans etc. is years away. No hope at the moment for the near future.

[beetee133]

The science behind bimatoprost seems really good though, which to me at least puts it pretty far ahead of treatments that's effectiveness at this point is purely theoretical.

Check out Garza's article (also known as the famous/infamous Cotsarelis article from last year) "Prostaglandin D2 Inhibits Hair Growth and Is Elevated in Bald Scalp of Men with Androgenetic Alopecia" (the parts where he talks about PGE2) as well as others, especially this one from the FASEB Journal: "The prostamide-related glaucoma therapy, bimatoprost, offers a novel approach for treating scalp alopecias.")

That being said, as long as it's years in the future it still feels like grasping at straws, and I agree it's horribly exhausting.

I don't want to look at it too closely but there's a part in the Allergan conference call when one of the executives says that bimatoprost for hair is not or was not part of their 5 year plan. Hard to know if that means they never planned it to come out within 5 years, they don't now plan on having it out in the next 5 years, or they just don't factor speculative things like that into their 5 year plan. Regardless, more waiting and patience for something that you don't even know if anything will come of it.