A new Chinese company named Kintor Pharmaceutical is working on an interesting hair loss drug called Pyrilutamide . It is extremely rare to hear about any Chinese company involved in hair loss cure research. Very strange, considering the country’s rapid pace of scientific advancement and massive population. Moreover, Chinese men and women are nowadays balding at much faster rates than in the past.
Update: August 4, 2020 — Phase Ib trials are now complete.
Kintor Pharmaceutical and Hair Loss
Four days ago, China-based Kintor Pharmaceutical (also known as Suzhou Kintor Pharmaceuticals) got significant Chinese media coverage. This interest was related to the company’s prostate cancer, breast cancer and hair loss drugs. h/t reader “Bekoo”.
Earlier this month, Kintor Pharmaceutical also had a very successful IPO in Hong Kong.
While the company’s main focus seems to be its prostate cancer and breast cancer drugs, its androgenetic alopecia drug trials are also advancing rapidly. Their main androgen receptor blocking drug candidate is called pyrilutamide (KX-826) and it is applied to the scalp topically. The company’s proxalutamide drug slows or stops cancer cell growth by entirely inhibiting androgens.
Make sure to also read my past post on androgen receptor destruction.
Also to be noted, Cassiopea’s Breezula is an AR antagonist that is ahead of Kintor when it comes to product release date.
Pyrilutamide
The one disappointing news is that Kintor aims to take on Johnson & Johnson’s Minoxidil. This could mean that topical pyrilutamide is unlikely to be much better than Minoxidil. I hope I am wrong. Recently completed phase one trials in China proved that pyrilutamide is safe and causes no major side effects in humans.
Kintor is currently conducting phase 2 clinical trials for pyrilutamide on 160 men in China, and phase 1 trials on 30 men in the US. Phase 3 trials on 600 people in China, US and Japan are planned for as soon as 2021. I would guess that the US FDA and Japanese PMDA will never accept Phase 2 results from China as any kind of proof to proceed to Phase 3 trials in the US and Japan.
So how can the company proceed so fast in the US and Japan?
Below is the pipeline from the company’s website:
