New RepliCel Interview

We have yet another new RepliCel interview. This one is with Lee Buckler, the vice president of business and corporate development for RepliCel.

How RepliCel Is Harnessing the Awesome Power of Cell Therapy

We are given a few more details regarding the company’s pending phase II trials, including frequency of injections. Mr. Buckler also mentioned Japanese licensing and clinical trial partner Shiseido a few times.

The two companies are preparing to launch a very significant Phase 2 trial in Japan using RCH-01 dermal sheath cup (DSC) cells for hair regeneration. The trials will involve 160 Japanese patients. The hair regrowth procedure itself is a cellular injection cell transplant rather than a hair transplant.

The cells are taken from a cell population located at the base of the hair follicle. These DSC cells are used to produce the company’s RCH-01 product.

The cells are sourced from hair follicles in the back of the scalp between the ears. This area is known as the “permanent donor zone” in hair transplantation terminology. This hair is insensitive to the damaging effects of dihydrotestosterone (DHT). At least in the vast majority of people.

I disagree with Lee’s statement that:

Second, hair transplantation only achieves a satisfactory result when performed by a gifted surgeon, of which there are few.

In my opinion, there are at least several hundred great hair transplant surgeons in the world today, and the ARTAS robot is enabling numerous strip surgeons to become “gifted” when it comes to FUE. I think in most cases, satisfaction is more closely related to expectations rather than surgeons these days. A Norwood 5 will not be happy if he expects a Norwood 1 type final result after a hair transplant. Because strip hair transplant surgery is becoming obsolete, scarring and nerve damage are also no longer as big an issue (albeit still possible) with FUE hair transplants.

Another major reason for hair transplant patient dissatisfaction is that the existing hair in the transplanted area will continue to die, even when taking Finasteride for many people. So in essence, the result immediately post transplant will only continue to slowly worsen in most hair transplant patients.

And in the long run, even the “permanent” transplanted hair is not always permanent, as can be seen in many older people’s totally denuded or sparse donor regions. In fact even in my 30s, my supposedly “permanent” donor hair at the back of my scalp is significantly less dense than in was in my 20s.