Category Archives: Hair Cloning

Aderans and Intercytex: Hair Multiplication Failures

In a first for this blog, I am updating a post from ten years ago! Perhaps I should change the title and remove the word “failure”? I wonder how many of the original 15 commentators are still visiting this site?

Update: March 9, 2024

Stemson Therapeutics Aderans Licensing Agreement
Stemson Therapeutics (US) and Aderans (Japan) new licensing agreement. Screenshot from Nikkei Asia.

Stemson Therapeutics and Aderans Announce Licensing Deal

Earlier today, Stemson Therapeutics (US) and Aderans (Japan), the parent company of Bosley® and HAIRCLUB®, announced a partnership agreement (licensing deal).

This arrangement secures Stemson the exclusive global rights to research, develop and commercialize hair regeneration therapeutic products based on Aderans’ proprietary hair regeneration cell therapy technology. Note that Aderans and and Intercytex represented the only two major hopes for a hair loss cure throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. And then companies both folded and made me originally write this post a decade ago.

Stemson today likely represents the number one hope for a hair loss cure, although there are a number of other contenders in China, Japan, South Korea and the US. At least when it comes to much improved hair loss treatments

Getting back to Stemson, the company is developing a proprietary cell therapy for reversing hair loss that is based on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). Per the press release, it now:

“Gains a complementary technology through this agreement. Stemson will resume Aderans’ Phase 2 clinical stage cell therapy hair regeneration program, integrate the technology into its existing hair loss cell therapy development pipeline, and provide multiple products for patients experiencing hair loss.”

What a great development. Aderans is back from the dead. It also seems like a backup plan for Stemson in case its main iPSC technology does not pan out. Moreover, Stemson seems to want to resume Phase 2 trials for Aderan’s hair regeneration technology. And Japan has more favorable regenerative medicine sector regulations when it comes to trials and in-clinic use.

Quote from Stemson CEO Geoff Hamilton:

“The synergies between the Aderans technology and Stemson’s in-house technology will help us accelerate timelines across our programs.”

Quote from Aderans CEO Yoshihiro Tsumura:

“We look forward to working with the Stemson team to enable their development efforts and to support the commercialization through our global network of clinics serving hair loss patients.”

Quote from the evergreen Ken Washenik (Chief Medical Officer of Bosley Medical and former CEO of Aderans Research Institute):

“Our pioneering work at the Aderans Research Institute to develop the first ever cell therapy solution for hair loss showed tremendous promise in clinical trials to treat early stage Androgenetic Alopecia in men and women. We believe Stemson, with their advanced expertise in hair follicle cell and tissue engineering, is ideally positioned to successfully complete development and commercialization of this exciting hair regeneration solution.”

November 25, 2014

Aderans and Intercytex: Hair Multiplication Failure

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 early-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 Bald Truth show. Also starring legendary hair loss sufferer and caller “Joe from Staten Island”.

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, in 2010 the Intercytex name and ICX-RHY were purchased by private investors and relaunched as Intercytex Ltd. 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.

Kangstem Biotech Hair Cloning in 2024

Perhaps the best hair loss cure related news of 2023 just came out last week (h/t “Theo”). South Korea based Kangstem Biotech plans to release a hair cloning type of hair loss treatment in 2024.

They will commercialize a cloned hair follicle-based drug screening and efficacy evaluation method; and begin nonclinical efficacy evaluation of hair transplants based on the cloned hairs.

Kangstem Biotech Hair Cloning
Kangstem Biotech hair cloning via hair follicle organoid culturing.

Kangstem Biotech to Commercialize Hair Cloning Treatment in 2024

Kangstem Biotech (South Korea) was founded in 2010 by Kyung-Sun Kang and is publicly traded. Its shareholders include a range of major Korean and Western companies. Without checking this company’s reputation, I might have delayed this post to next year.

The company specializes in cord-blood derived stem cell and other anti-aging related treatments. They are also a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO). I never heard about them till this week.

During the past two weeks, Kangstem Biotech had two press releases that are quite remarkable:

  1. On December 6th, the company announced plans to speed up the commercialization and launch of skin organoids to 2024. Interestingly, they had an update about their artificial skin technology and Seoul National University partnership in 2021.
  2. On December 22nd, the company announced plans to begin commercialization of the world’s first human hair follicle organoid-based hair loss treatment in 2024.

Per the second press release, Kangstem Biotech signed a contract with the Seoul National University Industrial Cooperation Foundation for:

“Human hair drug screening and human hair follicle production and culture technology for hair transplant materials to develop and commercialize hair loss treatment based on hair follicle organoids.”

Also check out the summary in Newsprime. And on Linkedin.

The company also states the following per the Korean to English translation:

“This technology is the world’s first artificial production of human hair follicle organoids in a test tube, and is a technology that reproduces human hair follicles.”

Kangstem has a two pronged approach when it comes to usage of its technology:

  • Provide a drug screening platform for the development of hair loss or hair growth pharmaceutical treatments. They plan to launch their business for hair follicle-based efficacy evaluation methods in 2024.
  • Begin non-clinical efficacy evaluation of using the hair follicles they culture for use in actual hair transplants. Also in 2024.

The government regulations for regenerative medicine in rapidly aging developed Asian countries have become very flexible. South Korea cannot afford to wait too long, considering that average birth rates in the country hit just 0.72 children per woman in 2023.

Also of significance, South Korea and Japan are both trying to become world leaders in cosmetic procedure related tourism.

South Korea’s Leadership in New Hair Loss Treatments

This adds yet another new South Korean entrant in the hair cloning or hair multiplication sector. Others that I have covered recently include Epibiotech and Han Bio. For a list of all major South Korean entities that are working on any kind of important hair loss treatment, check out my page on hair loss cure research around the world.

Update: Below is an e-mail update to me on 12/29/23 from “Theo” —

“From the press release I understand that they will commercialize hair follicle/skin organoids for drug testing by the first half of 2024. In parallel they will test the hair cloning technology in non-clinical trials to confirm efficiency (if I understand correctly). This technology is similar to Stemson, because both companies works with iPSCs and in vitro, and Stemson is at least 10 years away from commercialization.

Non-clinical testing in South Korea is the first step required by the state, and then comes clinical trials.

Guidelines for clinical trial approval (CTA) for drugs:

https://credevo.com/articles/2017/09/25/south-korea-clinical-trials-regulatory-process/

This is a very well established company, very well funded, with high quality infrastructure and connections. So it should go very fast.

The main CEOs and scientists in KangStem come from Seoul National University, which is in the top 25 universities worldwide.”