A Smorgasbord of PRP and Hair Growth News

Make sure to also read my post from last year on how well PRP works. There are quite a few studies from around the world that suggest that PRP is more than just a scam as many commentators seem to think.

The past several weeks have witnessed a huge number of news items, forum posts, videos and more related to platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and hair growth.

  • A new Italian study on PRP and hair growth was published in November in Stem Cells Translational Medicine. Results were favorable, with mean hair count increasing by 33.6 hairs, and mean hair density increasing by 45. 9 hairs per square centimeter. Point of interest: “We also observed an increase of Ki67(+) keratinocytes in the epidermis and of hair follicular bulge cells, and a slight increase of small blood vessels around hair follicles in the treated skin.”
  • At the 9th Congress for Hair Research from November 18-21, Dr. Ratchathorn Panchaprateep from Thailand presented favorable findings regarding combination therapy treatment of hair loss using PRP and Non-Ablative 1,550 nm Erbium Glass Fractional Laser. Total benefits in nine patients averaged around 17 percent increases in both hair density and hair mass. Treatment entailed two injection each month for six months in total.
  • On November 24th, Dr. Sam Lam published a video of his presentation on PRP/ACell/ATP at the 7th Annual Hair Transplant 360 Workshop that took place in Saint Louis, Missouri from November 19-22. ATP stands for Adenosine triphosphate, and it is usually administered in liposomal form via a spray during a hair transplant procedure.
  • On December 8th, the UK’s sensationalist/gossip rag Daily Mail (my favorite newspaper when it comes to hair related news) published an article on PRP injected in gel form for hair growth purposes. The Daily Mail’s articles are often quite inaccurate, but I am still glad that they give so much emphasis to hair loss news.

Overall, it seems like PRP is here to stay in the hair loss industry, especially when used in combination with extracellular matrix products such as ACell. However, as Dr. Jeffrey Rapaport told me recently, PRP will not regrow hair in totally bald areas. At best, it will make existing hair stronger, and in those who are lucky, reverse recent miniaturization.

It is important to go to an experienced physician if getting PRP treatments. I would only go to a doctor who has been treating hair loss patients with PRP for at least two years. You should also carefully check the pricing and number of treatments needed per year, as both vary significantly depending on physician. Some are very obvious ripoffs in my opinion.

Samumed’s John Hood & Sunil Kumar

So Samumed had yet another update two days ago. I was getting a bit annoyed and suspicious at seeing updates from the company every few days these past several weeks. Why can’t they provide all the information in one go if it has all been available for at least the past one month I presume?

It also seems like Samumed has only in the past month become active at providing press releases and sharing presentations on its website. Perhaps this is a sign that they could be sold in the coming year or are going to soon look for investors? All speculation on my part of course as I have negligible experience in the finance and investment arena.

Samumed Hair Loss Patents

In any event, I was 50/50 about covering this latest Samumed update in a whole blog post, but finally decided to go ahead after seeing something interesting. Samumed has 32 patents since 2010 according to Google Patent Search. Note that some of the same patents are listed more than once. Most of these patents involve Wnt/Beta-Catenin signaling related work, a crucial area of research in the hair loss world as well as in the broader medical world.

More specifically, a majority of Samumed’s patents involve work related to the Wnt pathway modulation via the use of Indazoles or something called 1H-pyrazolo[3,4-b]pyridine. I will leave it up to the chemistry expert blog readers on here to figure out further details behind these compounds and how they alter Wnt signaling.

John Hood and Sunil Kumar

It seems like a majority of Samumed’s patents involve two people:

  1. Dr. John Hood
  2. Dr. Sunil Kumar KC

Both these guys seem to quite accomplished scientists and have mild hair loss per their Linkedin photos here and here.

We have heard a lot about companies involved in finding a hair loss cure via PGD2 inhibition, PGE2 increase, wounding, hair cloning, hair multiplication, hair regeneration, dermal papilla cell manipulation, fat cell manipulation, newer anti-androgen development and more. Samumed seems to be the most likely company in the world at tackling hair loss via the Wnt/Beta-Catenin signaling pathway and therefore it is worth following the company even if it keeps releasing information in bits and pieces.

As far as the latest press release that I mentioned at the start of the post goes, the key sentence regarding Phase II clinical trials for the company’s SM04554 topical solution is that the product:

“Showed statistically significant increases for both objective outcome measures: non-vellus hair count (a primary outcome measures) and hair density (a secondary outcome measures), using the pre-specified statistical model.”

I am not overly excited about reading the above, as “statistically significant” could just mean yet another Minoxidil or Propecia (or even Bimatoprost — see Results) type treatment. However, with no evidence of significant side effects, SM04554 could be a great product if it enhances the effects of existing treatments. As opposed to different treatments cancelling each other’s benefits out and impacting the same hair positively, even if working via totally different mechanisms.

The most encouraging thing I read was that in in vivo animal models, SM04554 has shown to generate new hair follicles. This is a very rare outcome for any hair loss medication or treatment, as in most cases existing hair is made stronger and recently miniaturized hair is brought back to life. We are long overdue for hair growth success stories in animal models being replicated in homo sapiens.