Who else but commentator “Mike” to make us aware of the latest news about Follica? I am a bit annoyed that my google hair related alerts never give me the Follica information that Mike gives me. Whatever happened to artificial intelligence taking over?
Follica RAIN
Joking aside, Mike made a comment that during PureTech (Follica majority owner)’s latest investor forum webcast, they had a slide in which they named Follica’s androgenetic alopecia product as “RAIN“. The slide is 105-106 minutes into the presentation (link no longer working). I was surprised at such an acronym.
I would have assumed they any acronym for a Follica product would definitely include a “W” for “wounding” or an “SD” for “skin disruption” in there. What could RAIN mean? From browsing Follica’s website, I would guess that the “R” might stand for “regeneration” and the “N” might stand for “neogenesis”. Update: seems like the “AIN” part will stand for “abrasion induced neogenesis”.
Of course there are numerous possible relevant words that one can come up with for these letters and I am curious what readers think. Thankfully, there is no “M” in the acronym. That would have resulted in more discussion yet again about the compound that Follica will be using being largely based upon “Minoxidil“, which is highly unlikely. And no, I do not think that the “R” stands for “Rogaine” (brand name Minoxidil).
Confirmation of First Half 2017 Pivotal Study
In the above webcast, Follica confirmed that its delayed pivotal study would be initiated during the first half of 2017. In an earlier post from April this year, I mentioned Follica’s plans to start this study in the second half of 2016. With a best case product release date of 2018. A few months ago they then announced the delay of the pivotal study into 2017 and this is now confirmed. I would guess that the above best case product release scenario date must have now shifted to 2019?
It should also be noted that throughout this latest extremely lengthy and interesting PureTech presentation, one gets the feeling that hair loss is almost insignificant in terms of their overall focus. Medical issues take far greater precedence over cosmetic ones.
Follica Twitter Account Becomes Active Again
Recently the online hair loss world got very excited about Follica’s upgrade of its website with a goldmine of new information, including photos and product renditions. Follica also very recently restarted posting on its Twitter account after a lengthy break. They even followed this blog on Twitter after restarting the Twitter posts, so now I have to become much less skeptical about the company. How could anyone who follow’s this blog ever be fake?