Hair Loss Cure 2020 | Hair loss blog with the latest news updates.

In recent years, I have read a lot about carbonic acid shampoos for scalp health. These products supposedly help:

Unclog pores.
Reduce sebum levels.
Improve scalp blood flow and oxygenation.
Balance scalp pH levels.
Add moisture and volume to your hair.

You are probably not going to regrow hair in totally bald areas from these carbonic acid shampoos. However, anything that can reduce scalp oiliness and itching can only be beneficial to the overall hair growth environment.

Testosterone and its derivative dihydrotestosterone (DHT) besides causing hair loss: also raise sebum levels; increase acne outbreaks; and cause scalp inflammation and itching.

Carbonic Acid Shampoos

There are few popular carbonic acid shampoos on the market today that have many reviews. Among the main ones are Simfort, Fortero and Vanidox. This is in sharp contrast to the wide range of dandruff shampoos and hair growth shampoos made by renowned brands.

Simfort Shampoo

In Japan, an extremely popular deep scalp cleansing shampoo is called Simfort Sparkling. They have sold over 150,000 of these since product release. The 6-pack costs $230 while a single bottle costs $65. It currently has 2,300 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 3.7/5 stars.

According to the product description, the “expansion power” of this shampoo is a dense 8,000 ppm concentration level of carbonic acid. A single bottle of this hair fortifying product contains 150ml of foam. It can be used by both men and women.

Simfort is made in Japan and distributed by Seiseidou America. Do not confuse the latter with Shiseido and its Adenovital shampoo. Note that this product is based on a sulfate, paraben and cruelty-free formula.

The full list of ingredients in Simfort is very lengthy. Besides carbonic acid, it also contains keratin, numerous natural extracts, protein, rosemary oil and more:

According to the company website, carbonic acid help unclog hair pores, minimize excess sebum levels, increase blood circulation and repair hair follicles.

The Simfort shampoo (with almost 2,300 reviews on Amazon) does all of the above by:

“Absorbing deteriorating proteins that sebum plugs are made up of. The reaction between the carbonic acid and the plugs won’t get in the way of our shampoo doing the other half of its job: gently cleaning your scalp and outer layer of hair.”

Fortero and Vanidox

Other somewhat well known brands of shampoo that contain carbonic acid (carbon dioxide dissolved in water) include Fortero and Vanidox.

Vanidox is fortified with biotin, collagen, argan oil, peppermint oil and tea tree oil. It currently has 3,170 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.2/5 stars. Vanidox carbonic acid shampoo is made in the US and is paraben free, sulfate free and never tested on animals.

Fortero contains seven rare ingredients in rice bran protein, algae extract, charcoal powder, citrus lemon fruit extract, paeonia suffruticosa root extract, scutellaria baicalensis root extract and swertia japonica extract. It also has rosemary oil, green tea and lavender oil.

Update: May 20, 2024

A detailed summary with images can now be seen on the company’s website.

JW Pharmaceutical’s poster presentation at the recently ended US Society of Investigative Dermatology conference was a big success. The company’s WNT pathway activating hair loss product JW0061 caused a significant increase in the number of hair follicles compared to a standard-of-care drug.

Treatment of skin organoids with JW0061 caused the number of hair follicles to be 7.2 and 4.0 times higher on days 5 and 10, respectively, when compared to standard treatment.
Moreover, the results also showed a dose-dependent response. A low dose JW0061 treatment caused an 18% increase in efficacy. A high dose JW0061 treatment caused a 39% increase in efficacy.

Update: May 8, 2024

JW Pharmaceutical will present the preclinical results of its JW0061 Wnt pathway activating hair loss treatment in a poster presentation next week. This will occur at the US Society of Investigative Dermatology (SID) meeting, which will be held from May 15-18 in Dallas, Texas.

For the first time, JW Pharmaceutical will present the positive preclinical results of JW0061’s efficacy in human skin organoids (along with other models). Key quotes:

“Various non-clinical trials have confirmed JW0061’s excellent hair growth and follicular neo-genesis effects. JW Pharmaceutical plans to start Phase I clinical trials within the year.”

Previously, they had aimed to start clinical trials in the first half of 2024 (see bottom part of this post). In spite of the small delay, this is still positive news.

Update: August 29, 2023

JW Pharmaceutical’s JW0061 Wnt-targeted hair loss treatment just got selected as the “first national new drug development project” in 2023 in South Korea. Additionally, the company signed a research and development agreement with the Korea Drug Development Fund (KDDF). As a results, JW Pharmaceutical will receive nonclinical research funding for JW0061 for the next two years from the KDDF.

July 22, 2023

JW Pharmaceutical’s JW0061 Hair Loss Treatment

I previously mentioned JW Pharmaceutical (South Korea) in my post on activating the Wnt signaling pathway for hair growth. The latter is also referred to as the Wnt/β-Catenin pathway.

JW Pharmaceutical’s JW0061 is a first-in-class drug candidate that promotes hair regeneration by activating the Wnt pathway in skin and hair follicle stem cells. However, the company is yet to begin Phase 1 clinical trials, so I delayed writing this post. JW0061 was developed through JW Pharmaceutical’s AI-based data science platform called JWELRY. JW0061 directly binds to GFRA1 protein in dermal papilla cells and activates the Wnt signaling pathway.

Previously, by far the most well known company that was working in this area of Wnt activation and hair loss was the much hyped Samumed (US). Unfortunately, it folded in 2022 despite completing Phase 3 clinical trials.

Also of note, another South Korean company named CK Regeon (previously CK Biotech) is working on a much anticipated peptide to restore Wnt/beta-catenin signaling and hair growth. This peptide is known as PTD-DDM or KY19382. It works by inhibiting the interaction between CXXC-type zinc finger protein 5 (CXXC5) and dishevelled (Dvl). Very different from JW Pharma’s mechanism of action (see further below).

JW Pharmaceutical Wnt Activator (JW0061) for Hair Growth.

JW Pharmaceutical to Begin Clinical Trials in 2024

Yesterday, a reader sent me a link to an update on JW Pharmaceutical’s patent application for its JW0061 Wnt activator product. Apparently, the company has applied for patents in over ten countries. They already got a patent approved in Russia in March 2023, and have now obtained a patent in Australia.

On JW Pharma’s website, the product is listed as being in pre-clinical phase on the pipeline page. However, in this latest article, there is an encouraging quote:

“JW Pharmaceutical is currently conducting toxicity evaluation according to Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) at global institutions with the goal of starting clinical trials of JW0061 in the first half of 2024.”

This is confirmation of an estimate JW Pharmaceutical also gave last year. According to a company representative, JW0061 will complement and replace existing hair loss treatments. JW plans to develop JW0061 as a topical drug.

Note that even as far back as 2017, JW Pharma partnered with U Penn and Dr. George Cotsarelis to develop this very treatment. It was at the time called CWL080061.

Activating the Wnt Pathway by Binding to the GFRA1 Protein

In November 2022, JW gave a detailed update on their website in regards to the mechanism behind JW0061 and its hair growth effect. This was based on a presentation given at the Wnt 2022 conference in Japan. See the enlarged image here.

It demonstrated preclinical efficacy for hair regeneration in mice. According to preclinical data, JW0061 activates the Wnt signaling pathway by directly binding to the GFRA1 protein in dermal papilla cells.

Wnt/β-catenin signaling is crucial for hair growth in any area of the human body. It is the most researched area in the hair loss world. I must have written at least 50 posts on this blog in which I at least briefly mention Wnt. Even wounding induced hair growth (such as from microneedling or fractional lasers) is connected to activation of the Wnt/Beta-Catenin pathway.

Some natural products such as methyl vanillate also activate the Wnt/β-Catenin signaling pathway and promote hair growth. Dr. John Cole’s company used to sell a Wnt Act spray on Amazon, but it is always out of stock these days.