John Hood, Samumed, SM04554, Sunil Kumar, Wnt/Beta-Catenin

Samumed’s John Hood & Sunil Kumar

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So Samumed had yet another update two days ago. I was getting a bit annoyed and suspicious at seeing updates from the company every few days these past several weeks. Why can’t they provide all the information in one go if it has all been available for at least the past one month I presume?

It also seems like Samumed has only in the past month become active at providing press releases and sharing presentations on its website. Perhaps this is a sign that they could be sold in the coming year or are going to soon look for investors? All speculation on my part of course as I have negligible experience in the finance and investment arena.

Samumed Hair Loss Patents

In any event, I was 50/50 about covering this latest Samumed update in a whole blog post, but finally decided to go ahead after seeing something interesting. Samumed has 32 patents since 2010 according to Google Patent Search. Note that some of the same patents are listed more than once. Most of these patents involve Wnt/Beta-Catenin signaling related work, a crucial area of research in the hair loss world as well as in the broader medical world.

More specifically, a majority of Samumed’s patents involve work related to the Wnt pathway modulation via the use of Indazoles or something called 1H-pyrazolo[3,4-b]pyridine. I will leave it up to the chemistry expert blog readers on here to figure out further details behind these compounds and how they alter Wnt signaling.

John Hood and Sunil Kumar

It seems like a majority of Samumed’s patents involve two people:

  1. Dr. John Hood
  2. Dr. Sunil Kumar KC

Both these guys seem to quite accomplished scientists and have mild hair loss per their Linkedin photos here and here.

We have heard a lot about companies involved in finding a hair loss cure via PGD2 inhibition, PGE2 increase, wounding, hair cloning, hair multiplication, hair regeneration, dermal papilla cell manipulation, fat cell manipulation, newer anti-androgen development and more. Samumed seems to be the most likely company in the world at tackling hair loss via the Wnt/Beta-Catenin signaling pathway and therefore it is worth following the company even if it keeps releasing information in bits and pieces.

As far as the latest press release that I mentioned at the start of the post goes, the key sentence regarding Phase II clinical trials for the company’s SM04554 topical solution is that the product:

“Showed statistically significant increases for both objective outcome measures: non-vellus hair count (a primary outcome measures) and hair density (a secondary outcome measures), using the pre-specified statistical model.”

I am not overly excited about reading the above, as “statistically significant” could just mean yet another Minoxidil or Propecia (or even Bimatoprost — see Results) type treatment. However, with no evidence of significant side effects, SM04554 could be a great product if it enhances the effects of existing treatments. As opposed to different treatments cancelling each other’s benefits out and impacting the same hair positively, even if working via totally different mechanisms.

The most encouraging thing I read was that in in vivo animal models, SM04554 has shown to generate new hair follicles. This is a very rare outcome for any hair loss medication or treatment, as in most cases existing hair is made stronger and recently miniaturized hair is brought back to life. We are long overdue for hair growth success stories in animal models being replicated in homo sapiens.

Hydraulic Theory of Hair Loss, Stephen Foote

Intelligent Balding Men Post Their Theories

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In the little over two years since the inception of this blog, I have covered a few people (e.g., Liu Xuewu and Swisstemples) who have been promoting untested and controversial theories and regimens. The reason I have mentioned such people and their theories is because my intuition has told me that they were making some very salient points and deserved to be heard.

All these people have especially impressed me with their hard work and intelligent forum posts. I have generally not taken the time to fully understand all the details of what these people are saying (it would take me way too many hours to do so), although I have tried to understand the gist of their theories. On hair loss forums, these people’s threads often get forgotten as they move into lower pages.

Interesting Theories on Baldness

This week, we have two examples of new arrivals who deserve to be heard, and one example of someone from the past that I should have discussed a while back:

  • First, username “FGF11” posted his theory on hacking baldness by making around 30 (!) comments in here. He was willing to write a post about this for this blog, but I am reluctant to take up a guest post offer for now. Later on, Mr. FGF11 started this thread after joining the Bald Truth hair loss forums, and it has garnered significant feedback. Mr. FGF11 claims to have had his papers published in official journals, but he has many errors in his English and seems to be a fairly emotional and outburst prone person (not at all typical of most journal article authors). In any case, he seems very bright and hard working (even if I doubt his self-proclaimed authorship credentials) and therefore worth at least a quick read. At some point, I hope to get the time to read his posts in detail while googling all the acronyms and pathway interactions that I have forgotten or never heard of before. Even though I write a hair loss blog, there are 100s of hair loss forum members with more scientific/technical knowledge than myself.
  • Second, username “Chemical” despite joining the Bald Truth forums in May 2014, only made his first post on there about a week ago, And boy was it an interesting one. His thread is worth a browse as are all his later posts. He covers a wide array of topics that yet again I am not qualified enough to analyze in any detail for now. He is far less emotional than FGF11 and comes across as very professional. I should have probably posted this paragraph first.
  • Finally, while going through “Hellouser”‘s Hairlosstalk forum thread on his interview with Dr. Gail Naughton, I noticed a rare new post from veteran senior member Stephen Foote. I should have covered Mr. Foote in a separate post on this blog before, just as I have done with many other hair loss forum legends (e.g., search this blog for posts on Arfy, Bryan, Desmond, Ernie, Hellouser, Jotronic and Spex). I have read posts by Mr. Stephen Foote for years, and it is worth your time to join the Hairlosstalk forum and go through some of those posts after clicking on his username. He has a very unusual theory (hydraulic pressure) behind the process of hair loss and I am somewhat skeptical about it, but I do take him seriously as he has actually been published in journals and generally makes sense. Pubmed Links to his papers can be found here (from 1995) and here (from 2002). Mr. Foote and Bryan Shelton used to get at it on various forums and Bryan raised some good points arguing against Mr. Foote’s hydraulic theory. Run some google searches to find these debate threads.

Typically, there are at least 50 highly childish or amateurish posters for every 1 genius level poster on hair loss forums. I think that I am glad for both of these types. The former gives all hair loss sites more traffic and therefore makes us and our cause much more visible. The latter works to help solve our problem and expand our intellect.