RiverTown Therapeutics, David Weinstein, RT1640

Did I Underestimate RiverTown Therapeutics?

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I first covered RiverTown Therapeutics and its RT1640 hair loss product briefly in June 2016. My opinion of this company at the time can only be described as being highly skeptical.

RiverTown Therapeutics RT1640

This changed slightly in December 2016, when I wrote a post on Cyclosporine and hair growth. In that post, I discussed RiverTown’s RT1640 in much more detail. This product consists of three small molecule drugs that each work via different pathways and mechanisms:

  1. Cyclosporine A — FDA approved and off-patent.
  2. Minoxidil — FDA approved and off-patent.
  3. RT175 — A proprietary new chemical entity. Still needs FDA approval.

The final topical product will therefore entail synergistically attacking hair loss via three distinct mechanisms. According to RiverTown:

“One drug promotes the growth and migration of new stem cells, one drug promotes the commitment of the follicular stem cells to become new hair and one protects the dermal papilla from the effects of DHT.”

Note that RT1640 is equally effective in men and women. RiverTown’s science page has some other items of interest.

Dr. David Weinstein

Last month, The New Yorker magazine ran a cover story about the pending arrival of a cure for hair loss. To my huge surprise, they gave the most amount of coverage to RiverTown Therapeutics and its co-founder Dr. David Weinstein. Of the large number of  companies working on a cure for hair loss, I would definitely not put RiverTown in my top 5. Nevertheless, I now do take this company much more seriously than I did in the past.

Moreover, RiverTown is one of the main companies that will be featured in a soon-to-publish article on future hair loss treatments from NewBeauty magazine. In that article, Dr. Weinstein claims that he is hopeful that RT1640 will be available in 2022 via prescription. Both as a topical lotion scalp hair loss product, and a cream eyebrow hair loss product.

I therefore finally contacted Dr. Weinstein about his RT1640 product. He was more than happy to respond to me, and sent the below photos of his own before and after RT1640 scalp hair. The second photo was in a pdf document and lost some quality after extraction. I may try to get a better version.

Dr. Weinstein told me that:

  • They are currently seeking funding to move into Phase 2 trials.
  • He is convinced that RT1640 grows back lost hairs in their original pigmented format. i.e., the drug can reverse achromotrichia.
  • The proprietary molecule RT175 has been tested in 650 patients to date, with no safety issues.

RiverTown Therapeutics RT1640

Rivertown Weinstein Hair

Histogen, Female Hair Loss, Hair Stimulating Complex (HSC), HSC660

FDA Approves Histogen IND for Female Hair Loss

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Histogen Hair Stimulating Complex HSC660
Histogen Hair Stimulating Complex HSC660 for Women.

Update: July 2, 2018 — Histogen has just kicked off Phase 1 trials for its female hair loss product HSC660. The below post was originally published in May 2018.

When it comes to the speed of progress in a company developing and bringing forth to market a hair loss product, the most disappointing company for me has been Histogen.

Replicel and Follica have also been major letdowns in their speed of progress, although the former is perhaps now reliant on its partner Shiseido for further progress. Follica has made some big statements via its new and improved website during the past year, fingers crossed. In earlier years, the biggest disappointments were Aderans and Intercytex.

Histogen Background

I first covered Histogen in 2013, just a few months after starting this blog. In that post, I said that Histogen’s “male hair loss product (Hair Stimulating Complex — HSC) is in phase 2 trials, while the female product is yet to enter phase 1 trials“. Around the same time, I happened to be in San Diego and even visited Histogen’s offices and very briefly talked to a key staff member. I am clearly into hair loss research (anywhere in the world).

Note that Histogen’s product supposedly increases hair count via the injection of key growth factors in the form of KGF, VEGF, follistatin, placental growth factor, angiogenin and hepatocyte growth factor.

Since that original post, I have covered Histogen numerous times on this blog, with most developments entailing either 1) Conference presentations from CEO Gail Naughton; or 2) Brief mentions of Histogen getting some new financing and funding. In one of my past posts about Histogen, someone from the company even replied to a reader comment on this blog.

The one exception to the above was this upbeat post from 2016, in which we learnt from Dr. Naughton that Histogen’s HSC treatment would be made available in Mexico first (in 2018). They were also planning to soon conduct a large-scale 330-person clinical trial in Mexico with a local partner. They were also close to getting a partner in China for further clinical trials.

In 2017, Dr. Naughton then said the following in an interview:

“The U.S. trials are planned to commence in 2018; we expect it to gain approval in Mexico first, perhaps in 2020, and then in the U.S. sometime after that.”

And now in April 2018, Dr. Naughton said:

“Naughton said Histogen also is moving toward a late-stage clinical trial in Mexico for use of its HCS in men for treating baldness.”

US FDA Approval for Histogen IND for Females

Earlier today, I got a bunch of alerts in my e-mail about Histogen. The big news is that the US FDA has just approved Histogen’s Investigational New Drug (IND) for Female Hair Loss Trial. For those who do not know, an IND is the first step before Phase 1 clinical trials, and primarily focuses on drug safety.

So 11 years after Histogen was founded, they are possibly soon entering Phase 1 clinical trials for their female hair loss product. Makes one want to cry, but perhaps they will be able to speed these trials up due to already having tested the product in males. In their latest press release, they call their Hair Stimulating Complex product “HSC660”.

The only reason I decided to write this post was because of the below encouraging paragraph from this latest press release:

“Pilot and Phase 1/2 Clinical Trials of an HSC660 predecessor were completed in male pattern baldness outside the US, with results that produced statistically significant efficacy indicators and a clear safety profile. More recently, a physician-sponsored 10 patient study in the US showed cosmetically significant results in both men and women. In addition to seeing a 100% female responder rate in the physician-sponsored study, previous trials have shown efficacy in other difficult-to-treat populations including men over 40 years of age and temporal recession hair loss”.