FOL-005, Follicum, Hirsutism

Follicum Commences Human Trials for FOL-005

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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.

Men's Health Clinic Tokyo, Scalp MRI

High-resolution MRI to Track Treatment of Baldness — Men’s Health Clinic Tokyo

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If you look at the hair loss research centers around the world page (scroll below the world map for better details), Tokyo is one of the leading cities in the world where significant resources are being devoted to hair loss research.  Among the key companies and/or researchers to look out for in Tokyo include the renowned Shiseido and Dr. Takashi Tsuji that have both been covered on this blog before.  The Japanese government’s less stringent new regulations governing regenerative medicine testing in humans will likely result in a few other domestic and foreign companies testing new hair loss treatments in Japan in the coming years.

Earlier this month, I read an interesting article about the Men’s Health Clinic Tokyo that has developed a technology to carry out an image-based diagnosis of androgenic alopecia by using an ultra-high resolution scalp MRI.  This new MRI can take clear images of 200-300μm hair follicles.  This is a much needed development.  In my opinion, newer treatments such as PRP and laser are often benefiting hair growth at levels where the naked eye can see very little change, positive or negative.  Moreover, it is increasingly crucial to figure out whether a newer treatment is regrowing miniaturized hair longer, or whether a treatment is just maintaining existing hair and perhaps making it thicker.  Any treatment that reverses miniaturization even on a millimeter basis is something worth getting excited over, and this MRI will hopefully enable more accurate measurements of hair follicle structural changes.

Perhaps of more significance, the Men’s Health Clinic Tokyo has a section devoted to androgenic alopecia (AGA).  Most web browsers nowadays have a translate option that you can access via right clicking when on a page you wish to translate.  On the home page of the Men’s Health Clinic of Tokyo, the translation to English from Japanese results in a pretty funny title:

“Men’s Health Clinic in Tokyo is focused on testosterone (male hormone), is Japan’s first clinic to increase the male force.”

When it comes to my scalp, I definitely wish I had the female force rather than the male force!

It seems like besides the Men’s Health Clinic Tokyo, there are a number of other places in Japan that cater to men suffering from hair loss (e.g., Azabu Skin Clinic and Hair Medical and Shibuya Clinic).