The 9th World Congress for Hair Research just ended in Miami and there is a surprising lack of online publicly available information regarding key developments. Some companies often publish their presentations on their websites several days after the end of such conferences, so I will update this post in the next week as new information comes out.

2015 Word Congress for Hair Research (WCHR) Updates

— Update: 9th World Conference for Hair Research abstracts now available online.

— Update: Below is the unbelievable before and after image from Histogen’s Dr. Gail Naughton’s presentation that everyone is talking about (Edit: Image was later removed from source site).

— Update: Hellouser’s Youtube channel.

— Update: Spencer Kobren’s interview with Histogen’s Dr. Gail Naughton, including all her slides. Very encouraging and an absolute must see.

— Update: Spencer Kobren’s interview with Replicel’s Lee Buckler.

— The best place to get updates remains Hellouser’s thread on the HLT forums. He is apparently back in Canada and fatigued at present, but will slowly update that thread (or perhaps create new threads on different companies in that portion of the HLT forums). He is going to load his audio files somewhere outside the forums too.

— Samumed came out yet another press release today, summarizing its presentation at the Miami Congress. I am getting more optimistic about the company’s unique SM04554 topical product that tackles hair loss via the Wnt pathway. At present, the company has only concluded that the product is very safe based on its recently completed 300 person trial (interestingly, one of the co-organizers of the 2015 WCHR, Dr. WIlma Bergfeld, was involved in this trial via the Cleveland center).

Actual data on new hair growth will come out as it becomes available, which I am hoping will be in early 2016. The conclusion of the press release is encouraging, even if not pertaining to humans: “SM04554 has been shown to generate new hair follicles and increase hair count in multiple animal models.” At the same time, we have to be wary from past experiences that all these press releases could very well be just a means to attract publicity and funding. The final product could at best always end up being no better than Rogaine.

— I am disappointed that the 2015 WCHR Twitter account has been completely silent during and after the Congress. It is unlikely that they will publish anything this week either, but maybe it is still worth keeping an eye on that account before it ends in Twitter purgatory. Maybe “Helllouser” should get the wwww.twitter.com/2016WCHR account now while no-one has it and then tell the Japanese organizers of next year’s Congress that he will do a much better job of updating it?

— I discussed Allergan twice in this blog recently (see here and here) and it seems like the company is now definitely merging with Pfizer. Together, the new entity will be by far the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. Too early to tell how if at all this will impact the release of Allergan’s Bimatoprost and Setipiprant drugs to treat hair loss.

— Replicel usually publishes its latest presentation on its website and announces them via its Twitter account.

— Histogen remains the big mystery. A few months ago, most people had given up on it. Then things changed and I wrote this post. Now “Hellouser” is saying that he was very impressed with their presentation. I am really looking forward to his interview with CEO Gail Naughton.