Category Archives: Hirsutism

Follicum Commences Human Trials for FOL-005

I first covered the relatively new Sweden-based company called Follicum in April of last year. Thereafter, the company made a few announcements via press releases that I largely ignored since it was yet to commence phase 1 human clinical trials. And we all know how long those take, even after accounting for newer regulations in some countries that can shorten the time.

Follicum Begins Phase 1 Clinical Trials

However, last week Follicum finally announced that they had commenced phase 1 clinical trials of their FOL-005 product. This product can interestingly both inhibit hair as well as stimulate hair, although it seems like the company might be naming the hair stimulation product something else down the road, and it could be slightly different from FOL-005. According to Follicum, both the hair inhibition and hair stimulation products are based on “a large human protein which has been manipulated and modified.

They currently have 1 patient on whom the drug is being tested upon, but aim to have a total of 30 patients soon. The study is being undertaken at the highly respected Charité — Universitätsmedizin Berlin that I have covered on this blog before. This makes me take Follicum a bit more seriously.

The company’s research on mice (undertaken by contract research organization Dabur Research Foundation in India) suggests that this product will be significantly superior to Minoxidil when it comes to scalp hair growth.

Note that the current press release by the company only mentions testing FOL-005 for hair inhibition (important for those who suffer from excessive body hair, aka hirsutism). But I assume they will also be doing testing for hair stimulation with another similar product or the same product? I am not interested enough for the time being to ask the company about that important detail, but perhaps will do so after they come out with one more press release in the coming months. My intuition tells me that the hair stimulation product will have a different name and slightly different chemistry.

I was reluctant to write an entire post on Follicum, but changed my mind after a request on the hair loss chat on this site. And also because my monthly brief items of interest post is still over two weeks away.

Fluridil and Flutamide

To date, I have covered two anti-androgens in detail on this blog: Spironolactone and RU58841. Two other anti-androgens, fluridil and flutamide, are also fairly popular in the hair loss world. Due to their similar names, many people confuse the two, so I am writing one post to cover both products.

I do not want to write too many separate posts on anti-androgens. Moreover, if Breezula (Clascoterone) is ever released, it might end up being the most effective androgen receptor (AR) antagonist in history.

Flutamide

Flutamide (brand name Eulexin) is a synthetic anti-androgen that was first approved by the US FDA in 1989 to treat prostate cancer in men. The drug is sold under numerous brand names. According to the wikipedia entry on Flutamide, the drug has now largely been replaced with newer anti-androgens with fewer side effects.

I am not so sure if this is true when it comes to scalp hair regrowth applications since numerous hair loss forum members continue to use flutamide. Moreover, topical application of flutamide via nanoparticles could results in fewer or no side effects.

An interesting study from 2011 where a women with hair loss saw no results when on Spironolactone plus topical Minoxidil, but did see hair regrowth when on Flutamide.

Hirsutism

An interesting 2000 study from Italy compared Finasteride, Flutamide and Spironolactone for treating hirsutism. It found that all three were almost equally effective in reducing body hair modestly after a 6-month course of therapy.

Fluridil

The chemical name for Fluridil is Topilutamide. It was developed by Biophysica, Inc. of San Diego, California. Fluridil is currently sold via the brand name Eucapil, a topical product that is manufactured by Czech Republic based company Interpharma that holds patent rights to Fluridil.

Sometimes you can find it for sale on Amazon.

Fluridil Eucapil
Fluridil (brand name Eucapil).

The company claims that Eucapil is not absorbed systematically and it has thus far not resulted in any side effects. Interpharma was founded in 1932, and became a subsidiary of Japan’s Otsuka Pharmaceutical in 2008. Eucapil is only approved for sale in several European countries, but many people around the world seem to be getting their hands on the product easily.

The one and only study on Pubmed regarding Fluridil is from 2002, and suggests a modest benefit (anagen hair quantity increased from 76 percent to 87 percent) for hair loss sufferers with no major side effects. Also see this one other important paper on Fluridil. Eucapil’s before and after photos of scalp hair when using Fluridil seem decent, but perhaps they are exhibiting a best case scenario.

Fluridil versus Flutamide

Over the years, on all major hair loss forums people have created a number of threads asking whether fluridil or flutamide is better for treating hair loss.

If you do a google search for each product, flutamide has 423,000 results and fluridil has only 15,900 results. Clearly, this is a no contest when it comes to importance (by comparison, Spironolactone has 728,000 results and RU58841 has 78,600 results).

Moreover, if you do a search on Pubmed, flutamide has 3,238 results (although the majority are not related to scalp hair loss issues). Meanwhile, fluridil has only two results (!), with only one of those two being of significance. So based on popularity, it seems like flutamide is the way to go.

It is also likely that because flutamide is so heavily studied, its side effects are unlikely to result in any major surprises. However, based on effectiveness, the superiority of flutamide over fluridil is is not clear when reading hair loss forum testimonials.

Conclusion

There are numerous anti-androgens available in the market today. If I were to take one just for scalp hair loss, I would only use a topical one in order to limit side effects. When it comes to effectiveness on scalp hair, do not expect miracles. While all anti-androgens seem to result in at least modest benefits for scalp hair, regrowing hair on totally bald scalps is not likely.

As far as flutamide versus fluridil, I am not sure which one is more effective, but fluridil seems to be somewhat safer. However, flutamide is by no means dangerous from what I have read on the various hair loss forums and studies.

It is imperative to consult a doctor prior to trying such drugs, as my opinions and conclusions are just based on internet research. I am neither a doctor, nor educated or experienced in any kind of medical field.