Category Archives: Aderans

Aderans, Osaka University, Satoshi Itami, Shigeki Inui

Osaka University Hair Loss Research

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Today, someone on the hair loss chat on this site posted an interesting link concerning a Dr. Shigeki Inui of Japan-based Aderans and his positive thoughts on light emitting diode (LED) therapy for hair growth. After translating to English, it was not obvious when the information on that page was published. However, more importantly, I was surprised to learn that Aderans has a somewhat active research & development sector that is affiliated with several local Japanese universities (you need to translate that page into English).  The most important of these affiliations is with Osaka University and its Department of Dermatology.  (FYI — also read my post from last year regarding Aderans’ history).

Further research convinced me that Osaka University is one of the more important hair loss research centers in the world and therefore warrants a thumbnail on my world map of key hair loss research centers.  This is the fifth thumbnail in Japan and counting!

Dr. Inui has published numerous interesting hair loss related research papers in the past decade.  Also affiliated with Osaka University is Dr. Satoshi Itami, who has been involved in hair loss research for a few decades.

Aderans, Hair Cloning, Hair Multiplication, Intercytex, Ken Washenik, Spencer Kobren

Aderans and Intercytex: Hair Multiplication Failures

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All the great news this year related to hair loss research, trials and potential cures has made people very optimistic. However, a lot of hair loss sufferers are becoming excessively passionate about a select few companies (especially Histogen and Replicel) or about the results from a select few clinical trials.

I therefore decided to write this post as a warning from past experiences of putting too much faith into any one or two entities. Something as simple as lack of sufficient funding despite successful stage 2 clinical trials can cause a company to stop pursuing highly promising products.

In the mid-to-late 2000s, two companies named Aderans (Japan) and Intercytex (UK) caused tremendous excitement in all the online hair loss forums. Both were involved in groundbreaking research related to hair cloning and hair multiplication. Moreover, Aderans’ research was led by the renowned Dr. Ken Washenik through the Aderans Research Institute. He made numerous presentations about their technology at various conferences. Below are two of those:

However, in 2013, Aderans decided to liquidate its research institute. Spencer Kobren had a segment about this on his usually weekly radio show:

Intercytex abandoned its dermal papilla cell culturing work in 2010 due to financial difficulties, despite positive results from phase 1 trials. According to the company’s website, “the Intercytex name and ICX-RHY were purchased by private investors and relaunched as Intercytex Ltd in 2010”. ICX-RHY is a skin repair product.

As of 2014, Aderans’ research is focused on wigs and hair replacement. They purchased US-based hair restoration market leading companies Hair Club in 2013 and Bosley in 2001. Intercytex as a company is no longer in existence.