Category Archives: Organ Technologies

Organ Technologies, Organtech, Takashi Tsuji

Organ Technologies is Back as Organtech

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Update: February 11, 2023

Organtech: New name for Organ Technologies

Organtech
Organtech: hair follicle and other organ regeneration technologies.

After ending its partnership with Riken and Dr. Takashi Tsuji in 2021, Organ Technologies is back. It is renaming itself to Organtech, and this time the founder himself is Dr. Tsuji. A little confusing, but read the next paragraph. Organtech plans to start hair regeneration related clinical trials in 2024. And yet again they have a new website. They are also getting funding from Kobayashi Pharmaceutical.

According to the latest press release, it seems like founder Dr. Tsuji will remain the team leader and Organtech is still affiliated with RIKEN. However, Dr. Tsuji cannot be officially titled CEO, since RIKEN does not allow its top scientists to be CEOs of venture firms. This last point was e-mailed to me by a reader.

I previously mentioned how Dr. Tsuji took over Organ Technologies’ debt in 2021 in order to prevent patent loss. He also announced that they plan to offer their hair multiplication treatment in 2026. So this new development means they are on schedule. Note that Japan has favorable regulations in relation to clinical trial speed when it comes to regenerative medicine.

They are also very serious about fundraising this time. On March 6th 2023, they plan to present their technology on Tokyo Innovative Business Day. On Organtech’s website, it says that the company’s purpose is to “create functional organs.” They they emphasize the two main areas of Dr. Tsuji’s past work:

“Technologies that can contribute to hair regenerative medicine and dental regenerative medicine.”

Also of interest, the following patents are assigned to Organ Technologies. These now belong to Organtech.

Jan 5, 2020

I have mentioned many times that Dr. Takashi Tsuji and his hair loss treatment protocol holds the best short-term prospects for a hair loss cure. Mr. Tsuji is working in partnership with RIKEN, Organ Technologies and Kyocera. The treatment can come to market faster because 1) It is autologous in nature; and 2) Clinical trials in Japan get finished faster due to favorable government regulations.

All four of these Japan-based partners have their own sites (in Japanese and English). So it is hard to keep a track of new developments.

Organ Technologies’ New Website

Astute reader “Ben” recently found that Organ Technologies has updated its website. A goldmine of information is available in the new site. The hair regeneration page has a list of publications at the bottom. Apparently, the company has developed three generations of its technology over the years. Mostly via the work of Dr. Tsuji and RIKEN (in Kobe, Japan) it would be safe to assume.

I will add more to this post in the coming days, but wanted to start the discussion now. Please only post comments about Organ Technologies and the work of its partners in this post. All other comments can continue in the last post.

Organ Technologies Hair Regeneration Treatment.
Organ Technologies Hair Growth.
Organ Technologies, RIKEN, Takashi Tsuji

Organ Technologies and RIKEN Update

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A week ago, important news came out from Japan that the Organ Technologies and RIKEN team (led by Dr. Takashi Tsuji) partnership was making progress in its development of a cure for hair loss that they still aim for commercial release in 2020. The latest update mentions that the team has succeeded in creating equipment that “allows for more efficient mass production of such hair follicle cells”.

They will conduct safety trials on mice starting next month. If all goes well, human trials will commence next year. Since new Japanese laws related to clinical trials are aimed at speeding up the process, it is not out of the realm to aim for a 2020 product release. Especially since this autologous treatment entails using ones own cells (and multiplying them), implying less likelihood of major side effects. Key new quote from Dr. Tsuji:

“The latest results indicate that we have gone beyond the research stage. We will seek to industrialize a technology born in Japan.”

Not Impressed at Speed

A significant number of people posted links about this news; or e-mailed me about it; or criticized me about not covering it and instead focusing on hair systems and celebrity news (I deleted all insulting comments).

While I was very glad to read this positive update from the RIKEN team, I delayed this post primarily because I was not too impressed with the speed of progress in their research and trials. So I first chose to discuss the two new video updates in the previous two blog posts.

I thought that by now the Tsuji team must have already started work in humans. Clearly an incorrect assumption.

Edit: Thanks to “PinotQ” for pointing out the following paragraph from Organ Technology’s press release, which sounds like a big breakthrough:

“Previously, epithelial stem cells had not been identified, and it was known that the hair follicle regenerative capacity of cells disappears while cultured in vitro. However, we have overcome these problems with mouse and human cells after research activities over 7 years.”

Tsuji Still the Man

We have already known for several years that this RIKEN/Tsuji team aims to release their treatment in 2020. Both of my posts in 2016 that were related to this at-the-time groundbreaking news (see here and here) garnered around 300 comments each. At the time, there was justifiable reason for major excitement. This work represented the breakthrough that we had been awaiting for decades. Moreover, all four parties involved (Organ Technologies, Kyocera, RIKEN and Dr. Tsuji) have great reputations. Each brings unique strengths to the table. Most importantly, funding would never be an issue for this work due to involvement of large corporations as well as the Japanese government (via RIKEN).

Last year, I conducted a future hair loss treatment related poll on this blog. This work, led by Dr. Tsuji’s team, came in as the 2nd most looked forward to treatment that people were most optimistic about. I would definitely rank it as number 1 most important, as would numerous others on various hair loss forums out there.

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