Positive News from Shiseido, Histogen and Dr. Brotzu

As if the great news from Aclaris earlier this month wasn’t enough, out of the blue we get three new positive developments from totally separate entities during the past week.

Shiseido

Yesterday, this blog’s unpaid but respected Japanese correspondent “nosyu” provided us with a link to a big news story that Shiseido was commencing clinical trials in Japan in partnership with Tokyo Medical University and Toho University. Seems like the trial will entail 60 men and women and go on for up to 3 years. Another new article estimates the cost of treatment to be around $900.

Shiseido’s technology is probably identical to what the original inventor Replicel is/was doing in terms of autologous cell culturing and transplantation using the permanent hair at the back of a balding person’s scalp. Perhaps Shiseido might have its own improvements to the Replicel process, but that is hard to tell at the moment. It seems like one set of injections will give lifelong results!

Note that Dr. Ryoji Tsuboi of Tokyo Medical University (who will lead the clinical research work there), is also co-president of next year’s 10th World Congress for Hair Research. So Shiseido is hiring very reputable people. This development is especially good news since Replicel’s stock price and previously strong social media responsiveness have both tanked in recent months (perhaps this newly published video with Replicel CEO Lee Buckler was not filmed too long ago and Replicel is still continuing work in the hair department). Thankfully, Shiseido (the world’s fifth largest cosmetics company) is not letting us down.  Also see my post from 2014 on Japan’s new laws fast-tracking stem cell treatments.

Histogen

To my utmost surprise, Histogen’s CEO Dr. Gail Naughton responded to some questions from HLT forum member “Tomtom21”. Over the years, I have become disenchanted with this company (despite my regular coverage of it on this blog) since it seems to have been in the news for at least ten years. Numerous presentations, successful funding rounds and much media attention have still not led anywhere insofar as treatment being made available anytime soon to the general public. Nevertheless, it is refreshing to see the CEO responding to people in person. I always found Ms. Naughton to be fairly genuine and sincere and hope that her company does end up like this.

Getting back to the subject matter of this news item, Dr. Naughton states that Histogen’s HSC treatment will be made available in Mexico first in 2018 (!) and they will soon be conducting a large-scale 330-person clinical trial in Mexico with a local partner. They are also close to getting a partner in China for what I assume will be human trials in that country. The company is also planning for Phase I trials in women and Phase II trials in men in the US soon. Dr. Naughton said that higher doses are more effective per Dr. Craig Ziering’s findings. Finally, the company will most likely get more funding from an Asian partner, and will also prepare for an initial public offering (IPO) thereafter.

Brotzu Lotion

While all these new-age companies with their sizable funding rounds look into cellular biology, 81-year old Dr. Giovanni Brotzu is old school and prefers a topical product. I never wanted to cover this man’s work in the first place, but here I am mentioning him for a second time this year. Last week Dr. Brotzu gave a detailed interview to an Italian hair loss forum team. The big news is that there is an ongoing trial using his Brotzu lotion on 60 androgenetic alopecia patients. Virtually everything he says sounds reasonable to me, although I have done very little research on the accuracy of some of the more esoteric things that he mentions that I do not understand. He does make some excuses about the lack of photos.

Someone more motivated than myself can check out the Italian forum threads on this man and see if people over there are also optimistic. I like the fact that Dr. Brotzu openly and honestly states that his product will not help regain long-lost hair. Most likely, the best case scenario is that you will only regain what you lost in the past five years. Still a great potential solution for many younger people. Dr. Brotzu has a few patents to his name (the details for some of which include information on hair growth related applications).

324 thoughts on “Positive News from Shiseido, Histogen and Dr. Brotzu”

  1. Thanks admin for this amazing blog, keep doing your amazing work

    When do you think brotzu comes out?

        1. Yes he states that the treatment is more effective with people under age of 30 with a total stop of hair loss and regrowth

    1. FIDIA the company which bought the right of brotzu lotion started month ago their own trial of product. don’t know how much it will take but hope 6 months. then they may be moving to production process. rumor says 2017 but cross finger and hope.

      giovanni brotzu claims that he test it out this cream for six year with AA and AGA patient but FIDIA should make their own trial.

      that what i heard from people who emailed both brotzu & personal from FIDIA.

  2. Im live in korea.
    If brotzu comes out, it need doctor’s prescription???

    Guys…Can you tell me the route i can get it???
    Fin give me side effect. And now..doesnt work…

  3. Hi admin!

    Great article as always! :) for Shiseido, do you think their treatment will be able to bring back hair to the slick bald areas that have been bald already for years?

  4. Hello everyone,

    Thank you for this blog, I have been reading it for a few months now and it gives me some hope on a daily basis.
    Even if we never reach the “cure” we are waiting for, it helps me a lot living with my balding.

    It seems like we are not that far from new treatments. But we still do not know if they work well or not, for any of them (Folica, Shiseido, Histogen, Brotzu, Aclaris). I’m eagerly waiting for clinical trial results with photos ! We have to be patient for the next 2 years and we will know.

    I wish you all the best.

  5. If this lotion could bring back even 3 years of hairloss and stop further loss, that’s a cure for me. The problem with replicel: what about people with DUPA or retrograde alopecia? Or people with very thin donor hair?

  6. Sorry to be the rude awakening but NONE of these treatments should be taken serious until we see hard evidence. Its getting kinda sickening that we have to put up with the same bs talk over and over again. If Histrogen will be available in Mexico by 2018 why dont they put up a shitload of pics so the world can see the effect of their product?? It doesn’t make sense at all…just pure lies and scamming from this company.

    1. Yes, and why is it not sunny everyday, and why didn’t I solve war yet? I don’t understand.

      And btw they did share some pics… We know how it ended.

      1. Not very clear and consistent pics, are they?
        If anything, the way they tried to “enhance” their so called results by using different positioning, combovers and what have you… tells you they have bugger all in terms of effectiveness
        Let all these companies show an iota of evidence and then we can talk. For now, it’s all just empty rhetoric as far as I am concerned.

    2. @spanky Ive been following these possible treatments since I was 18 like 8 years ago almost…they have come a long way, but ya, its been 8 years to just get to this point! Hopefully within 5 years we have a new far superior treatment. I don’t use min anymore because it made you scalp greasy looking and would rub off wherever…and never tried Fin because I enjoy my hard erections, who wants permanent whisky dick?! Rather be bald.

      1. Been on fin for 3 years and still rockin hard erections daily. Never had one problem and results have been good. Enjoy being bald!!

    3. Agree. If the products had potential it would be reflected in the companies stock price. Until the companies stock shows strong accumulation, I think these claims are just hype.

  7. I have a feeling that brozu’ lotion is actually genuine, I hope it is, because this could provide us with the time to wait without worrying of anymore loss

  8. So people who have been losing for more than 5 years are sol? I’ve only been losing for 3 so it’s okay for me but the breakthrough cure to me plays out as a man with nw7 has a complete reversal but I guess baby steps…

  9. Glad to see some encouraging news it gives up some hope for the future.
    My topical finasteride from hasson and wong was just shipped and should arrive this week. I have also just got my initial blood test for DHT and I will be making another test in 2-3 months to confirm that it’s not going systemic.
    We should all be throwing a big party with our heads full of hair once a definitive treatment comes out.

    Cheers

    1. I’m not in denial, you are. Can you explain me since when pics are legit science? Maybe you should explain me also the reflect in the stock price, because it’s my job.

      Btw i do think that none of this treatment will beat Minox, but your overreaction are priceless.

      You will have some better maintenance options + HT. This is the cure. Norwood 4+ are screwed.

      And please, look at your behavior with Jak which will obviously do absolutely nothing… Time to wake up.

    2. @ Saleen,

      Was a prescription or an appointment needeed for the topical Hasson fin ?
      Can we take it if you re a girl ?

      Thanks

  10. We need Swoop or matt to jump in and give a scientific explanation compared with their suspicious evidence and tell us why in the world we should believe anything they are saying. Honestly, look at the latest pdf – powerpoint they released, looks like its made by a child.

  11. @admin
    I can understand the skepticism. The HL community is full of it for good reason. I agree with another poster that this isn’t really new information. I was hoping to get more of a “we started trials” news but hey… we can’t get what we want every time.

    I’ll just add this which is an echo of my past thoughts. I’m 7/10 on Histogen. I understand and feel the sentiment that is behind their “why isn’t it going faster”. But I really think that comes from our culture of instant gratification. The idea of “if it works, why can’t I have it now?” comes from our newest technology. I can really relate it to Apps… how they update every couple of days now, so that we have this idea that as long as we put out a baseline product we can continue to update it as the user base grows.
    Unfortunately the clinical trials that Histogen and everyone is going though is much more a system set up from the past. A painstaking process that takes time but also has safety measures that make sure the product works. The process in itself makes companies going through testing to be very careful to make sure their product works and that the processes used to get that data is properly set up – why? because a lot of money as well as time is on the line. A slip up means starting from scratch and needing more money.

    So here we are, left waiting and watching from the bleachers, cheering for a slam dunk – flashy, beautiful, instant- but we are watching a marathon – slow, grueling and awful. Histogen is running that marathon, trying to appease those that want to see a slam dunk with presentations and photos. But really what matters is the data and looking at the data, Histogen has released some of the better data sets I have seen (not amazing but better).

    So I’ll ask one question. Who is to blame in this situation? Our impatience and need to have Histogen release today as if it were a software company or is it the process? Should we have a system that allows companies to release a product whenever they would like?

  12. @Curious, nice post but IMO there is no need to get semi philosophical bout Histrogen, their delays and co-op with a hack convicted of fraud. The point about this company is that they (like lots of others) present nothing but warm wind and false hope to ppl who are desperate for a new treatment.

    1. This isn’t about Histogen… replace them with any company and the same anxiety and panic exists around it. You guys want the throw eggs and flour into a bowl and have a cake, forgetting that it needs to be baked. The same thing is going to happen with JAKs. They might be able to tell quickly if it works or not but when it does they are going to have to go through the same clinical trial process. It takes time.

      1. I’m glad that you brought up the cake and bake thing…here is the logic… there is a baking time for any cake..if it bakes too much it burns…hope you understand

    2. @ Spanky

      But didn’t Histogen provided good results in terms of hair count and hair density rates ? Like 40 to 50 % more or so ?
      To me, it’s good result, no ?

      I’m refering to the powerpoint and the Spencer Kobren (Broken) interview.
      Please tell me if you desagree.

      Pbb

  13. I understand and feel the sentiment that is behind their “why isn’t it going faster”. But I really think that comes from our culture of instant gratification. The idea of “if it works, why can’t I have it now?”

    are you serious curious???

    some of us have been waiting a long time and following these companies and their bs forever while hair goes down the drain.

    1. Yes I’m serious.
      I’ve been waiting for nearly 10 years as well, my hair hasn’t magically stopped falling out and I don’t expect it to stop either. I just don’t panic at every bad turn of events in my life.
      Does it suck? Yes.
      Do I rant about how other people/ companies aren’t doing enough or fast enough to cure my problem, think there are conspiracies to make me go bald, complain that a company needs to go through a clinical trial process that has existed much longer than I have been looking for a cure? No.

      Why are you guys on a witch hunt for companies that are “fake”? Be skeptical, I encourage it, but within reason.

      1. Dude curious i don’t understand your logic.. why would a drug needed to be tested for ten years. Look at samumed they tried and they failled..all in one year..they are not braging…why 10 years…is it whiskey that it will taste better after a while..total bullshit histogen is..either you are working for them…or you are a total idiot…

  14. What if there is no possible cure and they can’t bear breaking it to us? That would kinda suck announcing it. Least with paint we can give our bald heads any 2d hairdos we want ha take that dht!

  15. The true cure will be hair cloning or gene theraoy. It will happen but not for 20 years or so. That seems to be what all dermatologists keep telling me.

    1. Let’s have a little hope. Many times in science something was about to happen, and at that time almost everybody said it was impossible. Even the theory of relativity was thought to be junk, but then boom it was proven as fact. Once the discovery is made things happen so fast it’s as if it showed up out of nowhere. It’s happened before why not for hairloss? The cure might not come from any of these sources. It might come from some other biological research that none of us have looked into.

    2. hahahaha. AHAHA. Ok. Your dermatologist. I just asked the teller at the bank about my risk management questions I recently had too…some people. Use some logic once in a while. Sorry if I hurt your feelings, but stop relaying this cr@p like your derm is some sort of scientist. THEY ARE SKIN DOCS. I don’t ask my family doc an oncology question BECAUSE THEY DONT KNOW. They know as much as a common educated person with access to the internet. They only know their specialty area/field.

  16. @mjones, how many dermatologists do you see in a year? Sounds like you visit alot of clinics since your using a phrase like > all dermatologists.

    1. I visited about 4 top ones. DC and Philly UPenn docs. Not just for hair loss though. I had some irregular moles to get checked out and removed. However I always bring up hair loss when I see them to get any insight on what they know. They better treatments with stem cell activation hair growth within 5 years and full hair cloning cure within 20 years. They said they are getting closer but many hurdles ahead for ultimate cure

      1. Full hair cloning will start trials in 2020 with Tsuji. Maybe available in 10-15 years. I think Tsuji is ahead of the Americans if American docs say within 20 years.

  17. @Curious, I think its very fair to be beyond sceptical when a company acts like Histrogen. Im by no means on a Witch hunt. I often get very optimistic when reading news on this site, but Histrogen has just turned into an annoying bad joke (preying on vulnerable ppl) which I personally cant take serious until they stop referring to research made by a scam artist. Just wait and see…they will postpone until we’ll finally get the news that their product will never see the light of day.

    1. @Spanks
      How are they preying on innocent people?
      Are you referring to yourself? SHow have they preyed on you?

      I’m assuming that you are frustrated when they have presentations because you need a treatment more than you need a presentation. Is that correct?

      If that is the case, it might be a bit of a hyperbole saying that they “prey” on you.

      Are you frustrated when they delay their trials? If so, I suggest you look at every company in the game. They all delay. It is part of the process/ real world. I can’t think of one major company that hasn’t delayed and I can think of a few that have taken more time than Histogen (who unfortunately had to deal with a lawsuit).

      That said, if they come out with a product that can reproduce their results on my head… I’m getting it and so are you and everyone on this forum. So I’m not sure what else you want? No more communication until they have a product?

      If anything I’m more skeptical of Follica because they have zero communication which is beyond frustrating to me. But I would never bash them/ call the fake/ write them off because if they got what I want, I’m taking my money there (daddy needs new hair). No need to get upset because they aren’t communicating how I would like them to.

      PS. This last update wasn’t even a presentation, it was some random guy who emailed Histogen. And now it is being taken as scripture, delays and more reason to Histogen bash. For all we know the guy could be full of shit or this correspondence is right in step with their original plan.

      Let’s have a beer, cheers to our good health and take a break from worrying which company is doing what every minute of our lives.

  18. How are they preying on vunerable people ? They have never got a dime of my money and im guessing yours either ? They are not obligated to update us with any information , yet they are more active in the hairloss community then most . You dont get as far as they have if you dont have something that works at least somewhat !

  19. I’m 22 and lost a decent amount of hair so far. =(

    Does anyone have hope for the Brotzu lotion? And is the estimate release date in 2017?

    1. Johnny I feel for you brother. I started losing hair at 20. Please hop on Propecia to save what you have and regrow hair. Don’t be scared of the sides. If you get them just ride it out for the first 6 months so your body adjusts. I got minimal sides that went away within 5 monthd. Kept my hair for over 14 years. These new treatments are not guaranteed for full regrowth or any for that matter. It’s all speculation at this point plus they may never come to market. Hop on fin, save your hair for at least 7 years and by then we should have better treatments. Last thing you want to do is wait and watch your hair all fall out.

      1. This sounds crazy. You just “rode out” sexual sides for five months?! What about all the horror stories of guys becoming permanently impotent from this crap and even getting long term depression and brain fog?

        That’s my biggest issue. I first noticed my hair loss at age 21. They say by the time you notice it, you’ve lost up to 50 percent density. I’m turning 26 this summer and Rogaine has helped definitely but it’s just not enough anymore. I’m diffuse thinning all over and it’s getting really hard to cover up. I want to contact my Dr. and get a prescription so I can micro-dose but I tried fin once before and I was unable to get an erection within three weeks of taking it. Scared the sh*t out of me. Sad part is, I might be desperate enough to roll the dice again. I just wish this nightmare would end already it’s taken such a toll on my entire personality.

        1. please do not try fin again, you are very lucky its not permanent. I mysel up badly and have permanent sides. being bald is now my least of concern. you think you are in a nightmare right now losing hair but believe me it can be 100 times worse when you have these permanent sides.

  20. @Johnny. If I were you, I would have fear of side effects. That’s the real truth. Do not listen to mjones. You will have better treatments soon.

    Atypical post-finasteride syndrome: A pharmacological riddle.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27298504

    One of the last studies that CONFIRMS Syndrome Post Finasteride. Of course ALL hair transplant doctors say: Side effects don’t exist. NO. Side effects are VERY REAL. AND THEY KNOW IT.

    THANKS.

  21. @trouse. If you got bad sides then don’t use it. Mine weren’t that bad. I had ED for like a week then I was fine. Never had brain fog either. It’s up to the individual if they want lose their hair or suffer from sides. I had really high dht and constantly horny. Propecia stopped my hair loss, cured my acne too. I valued my hair a lot and I took the risk and it was well worth it. I couldn’t imagine being a nw6 in college. F that! I lived my 20s with good hair. Now I’m losing ground but I’m almost 35 so I guess it ain’t too bad being a diffuse nw2 2.5 ish

    1. @paul phoenix. I visited a couple doctors back when I was 20 and they all told me Propecia had sexuak sides effects. So I wouldn’t go trashing all ht docs. I remember going to Bosley haha he told me Propecia had sides but to try it out and see if it works. He told me to quit if it got bad. So it wasn’t Iike he was telling me it’s totally safe. Everything has sides if it’s a drug. Even new treatments. Hsc, sm, sisheido will probably have sides too. Hopefully much less .

  22. In the new interview with replicel ceo he said that if the clinical data is well read they hope for a 2018 release, but shiseido they are starting a 3 years trial ?? Or it’s different than the replicel shiseido stem cell cure ?

    Also guys if i cant take propecia because of bad effects since i already have low dht levels, can i take saw palmetto? And does it work ?

    1. Doesn’t matter. It can b released during phase 2 in Japan. The whole trial doesn’t have to finish for it to release

  23. They are preying on ppls hope with their updates which contains nothing but the same empty babble in a new package served differently each time. If they are so close releasing something why on earth cant they take their time to have some proper new photos taken so we can see some results?? Combovers and macro photos of peach fuzz is all they have shown so far. Apparently ppl are willing to accept that the hair loss research industry is the only business in the World where companies dont have to show proper visual proof of their products.

    @mjones, im still considering Fin but im also freaking nervous bout the possible long term sides:/ I think I’ll order Hasson & Wongs topical Fin soon tho and try that out.

  24. Anyone with knowledge of this correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember reading some where regarding Replicel that in Japan they can commercialize their product DURING phase 2 if all is well. The new article states that Shiseido is conducting a 3 year trial which would take us to possibly 2020 as a release date if they have to wait until after phase 2 is complete.

    1. Sorry admin for all the finasteride comments I just want the younger members to not be afraid to try something that is proven to work to hold on to their hair until one of these newer treatments hits the market. As we all know Propecia is the only thing proven to date to slow down hair loss and possibly regrow. I won’t post any more Propecia stuff on this topic.

      Mman. Yeah I heard that they can release a solution during phase 2 trials as well. That would be our best hope if this stuff actually works and not end up being another Aderans

  25. @Spanky,

    Want my opinion? I think damage control is everything in AGA. I have thought of AGA being irreversible from quite some time at a certain timepoint. Not only me though like I said in my latest post pretty much all the elite researchers deem AGA to be irreversible at a certain timepoint. Here even Dr. Rolf Hoffman from Replicel concurs with that side;

    https://www.hairlosstalk.com/interact/threads/recommended-interview-presentation-of-dr-rolf-hoffmann-from-replicel.99711/

    ” He said that he thinks there is point of no return in AGA. That means that after some time you can’t regrow hair.”

    Dr. Higgins;

    “Yeah, with AGA you do get to the point of no return where you can’t go back. That’s why it is different from alopecia areata. Even if you lost your hair 50 years ago with alopecia areata you can still reverse it, because the stem cells are still there. In AGA you lose the stem cells and without them the only option is to make a new hair.”

    “I think the future (but it’s not in 4 years or 5 years away, it’s like in 20 years) is to promote direct conversion of fibroblasts into papillae. But something like this will take decades. We don’t know how to do that yet.”

    Dr. Tershikh, same story (Solomun will post later). Also I have had contact with other two very elite researchers and they also talked along the same lines.

    The near future is quite predictable imo. We’ll probably have more damage control therapies if that makes sense, that will also give some regrowth. But you ain’t going to see heavy Norwood reversal happening anytime soon. Unless off course a miracle arises.

    I would urge anyone to act in damage control now. You can even do it without finasteride. At least try to slow down the progression of AGA. With a bit of luck we’ll have therapies soon that will make finasteride/minoxidil more obsolete.

    But hair transplant surgery is still nowhere going to be challenged the coming years imo in terms of cosmetic effect as it’s looking now.

    That is until the day gene therapy comes or a proper organ regeneration method a la Dr. Tsuji, but that my friends is simply not in the close but more in the distant future.

    1. @swoop,

      I thought I had just (somewhere) read that they had proven that hair follicles and (at least) their various cell components do not die, but follicles are simply miniturized to a microscopic level. Is that not true? Perhaps I misread/misunderstood a previous post from just a week or so ago.

  26. @Spanky ,Dude what makes them different then any of these other companies ? All of them are just talking right now . You guys keep wanting pictures , like i say with pictures you show me a pic of a bald guy that regrew hair and i will show you a fight over if its real ? or the camera angle,combover ,lighting ETC. they prove nothing ! I get that Histogen has taken awhile but i dont see any other companies rushing through anything either man. The data you should want is from a 2nd or third party source that trialed the drug ,like an fda or something , thats the real evidence ,not any picture ! It would be a shame to bash this company or any other company for that matter until you have evidence they are not legit , after all 10 or 15 years ago we couldnt wait until we had all these companies trying to develop a cure or treatment . we made it to this point , now its just time to wait for dominos to start falling over .

  27. @Swoop, thank you for your insight and links.
    Like Rafael I’d also like to know bout damage control without Fin ? (sorry @admin, not trying to discuss it)

  28. @hlscc, Lol you think a competing Doctor trying to get rich on his own product would give JAK a 7/10 chance, haha?

  29. All the waiting does suck but I understand but it’s not like these trials are going to turn out like those people playdoe toys that instantly grow dreads. Even if they had full fledged cloning we would have to wait hair has to grow.

  30. Just a little bit of perspective on clinical trials from someone who works at a pharma company.

    I know you’re frustrated about how long things take, I am too. I agonizingly had to cut off my beautiful long hair a couple of years ago and my NW2.5 hairline is on the express track to 5-town.

    Here’s the thing though -getting a drug to market is hard. Really, really hard. Even if you have an excellent product, before you even get to trials you have think about so much stuff. What’s the toxicity profile like? How long can this sit on the shelf without going bad or even becoming harmful? What should I suspend this drug in? How should it be administered? How much? How frequently? This stuff can all make a huge difference and you can’t just guess, you have to do experiments, which cost a lot of time and money.

    Then you get to the trial. You need to see the effects of this drug in people over several years to be sure it’s relatively safe and effective. Going through phase 3 can literally cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Unless you’re one of the really big companies, you’re going to have to convince someone to pay for that, and the risk they won’t see any of their money back is very high. (Over half of drugs that go into phase 3 aren’t approved, and profit-eating patent lawsuits over technology abound, especially if you’re going to have a successful product).

    Let’s say you clear all those hurdles and have a product that works. Now you have to figure out how to manufacture mass quantities of the stuff, which you may have very limited experience with, and is no small feat. You may literally have to build a factory if you don’t have a partner. You have to file literally half a million pages of documents with the FDA in some cases to get your final approval too. This isn’t to mention labeling laws, distribution, marketing and sales.

    My point is that drugs aren’t like an iPhone, you can’t just send out an update if something isn’t working. People’s health hangs in the balance, it’s an extremely risky business, and the amount of work to get a drug to market is mind bending, especially for a small biotech company.

    Anyway, i hope this puts things into perspective a bit – I’m hoping one of these companies clear the hurdles just as much as you are but unfortunately it takes years, not weeks or months.

    1. “You have to file literally half a million pages of documents with the FDA in some cases to get your final approval too. ”

      Tell us, what jurisdiction does the FDA have over companies based outside of he USA? As far as I’m aware, Europe and Japan have their own regulatory agencies.

      1. None at all, of course each country or economic zone has its own regulatory body. I was just using the FDA as an example to illustrate how much work goes into the nuts and bolts of getting a drug approved.

  31. Dr. Tsuji was aiming for clinical trials in 2020 and so even if not market ready we should at least know whether his method is successful in humans some time between 2022-2025?

    I hope Claire Higgins’s estimate of 20 years isn’t based on Tsuji’s predictions. She said herself she doesn’t know much about Tsuji’s work, and if I remember Dr. Jahoda (whom Higgins worked alongside), wasn’t able to grow fully functional hairs the same as Tsuji.

    So hopefully Tsuji is ahead of the rest and “20 years” will be more like 10-15.

    1. 10 to 15 years is such a long time. Let’s hope hsc, follica, or replicel will give us great regrowth within the next couple years. 10 to 15 years is too long to wait and to be honest most of us will not even care then or will be complete nw7s and over 45 yes old

  32. mjones, i do care at 42 years old :)

    But i am not a NW7 thanks to fin and minoxidil. I hope that replicel or histogen comes to the marjet until 2020.

    A combination of one of these new treatments with FUE will be a cure for many of us. If they work, of course.

  33. So I see good things in the future, but nothing will be released for years. In other words im screwed.

  34. Hold the phone shiseido said 3 years for there trial 3 which by that time will be 2020 what happened to 2018 stuff?

  35. @H

    I believe they can still release it during phase 2 given the newly relaxed regulations. Somebody please correct me if I’m wrong.

    Even if there was a 2018 release there is always the potential for an even further delay given the possibility of a very high demand. I would imagine it could prove difficult to even get an appointment. Does anyone else find this to be a reasonable concern? I don’t mean to be pessimistic I’m just trying to be realistic.

    How unfortunate it would be to get put on a long waiting list after all these years of waiting. I hope it could be avoided but I just don’t know. Unless I previously missed something. Still a good news day though.

    1. @Kevin. No you are absolutely wrong. And you are pessimistic. Not realistic sorry. Realistic is this: In 2020 or before we have a new treatment for MPB, of course better than Minox and Fin.

      1. @Paul Phoenix

        You clearly misunderstood what I was getting at. I’m not contesting the release date. Rather if it’s possible to get treated in a timely manner due to the possibility of an extremely high amount of traffic.

  36. Meh all the drastic cell culturing will shorten telomeres of the drastically and that’s the problem and Im pretty sure that shiseido/replicel the cells act way too old to properly give rise to nice terminal hair. My bud works in a medicinal 3d printing lab and he says that telomere shortening causes all kinds of horrible shit and prevents them from growing many types of tissues for transplantation. It’s horrendously retarded that the likes of Bill Andrews cant get funding to develop a small molecule that would temporarily induce the needed telomerase to stop the shortening and even lenghten then. The type of cell shiseidio uses can only divide about 52 times and boom hayflick limit steps in.

  37. Admin, will you be posting anything regarding the new info from the European Hair Research Conference? Would love to get your take on all this. Seems like we might be sh** out of luck as far as regrowth goes for 2020.

  38. After reading Jack’s comments
    I now believe Brotzu and Jak are 2023 at miraculously best

    Shiseido, Histogen, Thorn Medical, Follica are really the closes ‘games’ in town because they all say themselves they plan to be at market by or before 2018.

    So if this blog’s title lives up to reality it rest in the balance of those 4 companies as far as i can tell.

  39. You dont need regrowth to be cured.Full regrowth is not going to happen anytime soon. You need to stop hairloss and thicken weak hairs you still have. Then you have HT. Nowadays HT can give excelent natural looking full head to people up to nw3,very good head for nw4,good head for nw5, semi good head for nw6 and thats for current generations. The next generations might just start some hairloss stoping medicine at 20 and they wont go bald. And it will change the whole industry if the hairloss sufferers will very much shrink in numbers. Its also about making money so I believe the companies are deliberatery pursuing ways that wont be one pill miraculous cure,they need continuing cash inflow so probably just partially functional medicine you have to use continuously to not lose hair more is best for them.

  40. @Shawn G.

    Do you refer to the study of Cotsarelis in which he shows that stem cells are still there and there is a lack of progenitor cells? That study wasn’t done on slick bald people. But the thing is.. AGA is nasty.I could write 50 pages about this. Not only the fibrosis part. Indicative evidence seems to point out things like senescence being implicated in AGA etc. Extremely bad stuff. I’m sure these elite researchers are aware of all the latest findings in hair follicle biology, more specifically AGA too. Anyway you got it straight from the horse’s mouth now….

    @Spanky, Rafael,

    I’ll post about that soon :). My gameplan is to work in terms of damage control until minoxidil and finasteride become more obsolete. That’s when I’ll switch and just maintain my hair. Reversing norwoods is just not going to happen in the near future, seems like a big fantasy now. Protect as much as you can.

    1. @ Swoop

      When you are a gril it seems more difficult to do damage control. Personnaly i am really afraid by taking things such as cyproterone acetate. It could get me a thrombosis and… death ! Or it coul give me breath cancer or even a brain tumor as i read.

      What can I do other than Minoxidil to prevent damages?

      I am taking a pill which as a little bit of cyproterone acetate but i am not fine with it.

  41. Thanks Swoop.
    Curious to know your strategy.

    And since you had a ht too, are you worried if it don”t make you a good candidate for replicel or histogen? Probably you already commented about it, but i’d appreciate your feedback.

    Thanks again!

  42. Hey Guys! I’m new here, been stalking for quite a while and I see that you guys know alot of the science behind hair loss. What do you guys think about cucurmin ? I was searching for cucurmin side effects and I stumbled upon this “Curcumin inhibits the STAT3 and NF-κB signaling pathways, which play key-roles in cancer development and progression” is it possible that it may work similar to jak inhibitors ? I am taking this because I suffer from hyperprolactenimia and I think that this condition might have triggered my hair loss and im fighting to reverse it. What are your toughts about this ?

    Source: http://www.raysahelian.com/curcumin.html

  43. Claire Higgins and the rest of the congress seemed highly pessimistic about a future cure coming along for at least 20 years. Dr. Higgins isn’t even focusing on hair at the moment and as we know, even Doctors estimates can be off. Meaning that it could be more like 30-50 years based on the congress in Georgia.

    This is terrible news that so many experts are thinking this way. Our only hope now – and I’m saying it here – is for Dr. Tsuji to reach a breakthrough with his germ regeneration method. This would be a de facto cure, as it wouldn’t be brining dead follicles back to life but replacing them with replicated new hairs.

    1. He isn’t even working on a hairloss cure. It would be a bi-product of his other research. He wants to regenerate skin so they can test chemicals on it and avoid having to plan/pay real humans to test the chemicals.

      I would not hold my breath for somebody not specifically looking to cure aga.

  44. The question now is, who is going to be proven right: the majority of researchers from the latest hair congress OR Dr. Takashi Tsuji?

  45. Basically in a nutshell from what I’ve gathered a better ‘treatment’ may be on the horizon keeping the hair loss at bay “may”. However a cure that regrows reverses completely nw7 to slick thick head of hair which is the ‘cure’ that’s how a cure would be defined is basically a fairy tale not even in a scope of possibility honestly.

  46. Admin, Dr. Eddy Wang just said he gives JAK inhibitors a 5/10 chance of curing androgenic alopecia! You were right at 50/50 all along:-) Are you gonna reduce back from 60/40 lol

  47. I am feeling suicidal about hair loss.

    I noticed my hair was changing late last year but it wasn’t until Feb that it became noticeable. I buzzed my hair to a #3 guard. It looked scary. About 40% less density and diffuse thinning all over. I started propecia around late March but there hasn’t been much improvement. Maybe a bit in the crown but the front and sides aren’t good. I’m growing my hair out so it’s difficult to tell.

    I’m 27 and don’t want to be a slave to propecia all my life. Even if a new treatment came out, propecia would still be necessary. This is beyond a horrible experience.

  48. Oh, I reckon he meant Wong then:-) Well hopefully we’ll get more JAK news soon so we can get some clarification.

  49. @George, I too feel very strongly bout losing hair. Its the worst!!! You really should consider a hair transplant. If your ready to spend money and you find the right FUE clinic it really seems like its an awesome solution. I’ve recently begun checking out clinics and it seems pretty clear to me that its the only way to go if you wanna have that BIG cosmetic difference in your apperance

  50. At the 17th MEETING OF EUROPEAN HAIR COMPANY RESEARCH from 24 to 26 June 2016 at the State University of Tbilisi, who were interviewed and who responded to the famous question (Incidentally, it is I who suggested on Hairlosstalk) confirmed what I feared. There is indeed a point of no return at an AGM. I speak of course of dead cells due to depletion of hair cycles.

    I’m tanning, I agree, but I beg you, there must be a way to find a solution. There are plenty of others who are in the same mess in which I thicket. While fall is my drug, every indication I have reached the point of no return like some AGM in the way the hair is fallen, and all the symptoms that come with.

    I am condemned to perpetual baldness and refuse the verdict. I was a handsome young man and I became a hermit hidden in the hollow of the holder. However, I can not hide indefinitely because, as life dictates, I shall compel to leave in two months. If I can not find a solution, I can resume my life control in two months, is above my strength. Call me a coward, but I prefer to disappear rather than being continually crushed by the shame. This situation is intolerable.

    So, in addition to wigs, dermopigmentation and “self-acceptance” is there a way or even one glimmer of hope for a poor guy just waiting to get back his own hair, at least something presentable. I do not ask the moon, I just want to look like a human being. I want to be myself, simply. I ask you to knee.

    1. William, it can’t be that bad. I am sure you don’t look inhuman. Everyone goes through the phase that you just described, but it passes. You may not even be on the path to loosing all your hair very quickly. My boss has been thinning for 20 years. Still has decent hair for a 50 year old man. My grandfather started thinning when he was 30. He still had a good chunk of hair on his head into his 70s. It is all about your genes. I think you have fallen into the trap that happens to some of us; you believe that you are no longer worthy of the world because you are losing your hair. F*ck that. You are transitioning from a young male into a man. Change your perspective of the world, and of yourself. Get out there, and meet some people. Even if it is by doing charity work. There are other facets to your life other than your hair. You can still be good looking. You just won’t be the good looking young boy you used to be. You will be a good looking man. We all hope for something amazing to happen here, but I look at this site basically as a science fiction site. This stuff is all theory, speculation, and anything that is functionally on the horizon is happening in a universe far, far away. There is all this talk about hair never coming back after a considerable period of time… It is hopeful that in 10 or 15 years we will have hair cloning anyway. Maybe CRISPR will advance faster than we ever thought. I remember reading a story that there are people that are doing gene hacking as a hobby in their own labs out of their garage. The Bill Gates of the gene world could come from there. Some important discoveries will be made over the next 5 years.

    2. Hi William,

      I really feel you. I am a girl, young… i think it’s even worse for us.
      Did you consider hair transplant ? As you are a guy it could be a great solution, in addition with all the topics we can use and oral treatment. I think you can manage to get a good result, don(t you think ?

  51. Hey George I feel you man. Hang in there and wait a couple years for follica. They may be able to give you more growth and hopefully histogen will be out then. 2018 is really only a year and a half a away. Who knows Propecia may start kicking in for you soon. It takes 12 to 24 months for full effect. Hold off on fue until you stabilize at least.

    I reread some of the comments here. I still don’t understand how some of you actually believed a full blown cure was on the way. I mentioned many times that the dermatologist I go to who works under Dr cots said a better treatment is within 5 years but she laughed at me when I said cure. She said we are years away from that. I do believe that the next treatment whatever it is will give us good regrowth. Couple nwds worth of growth. But a nw7 to a nw1 you must be dillusional. They still haven’t shown any pics of anyone going up 3 nwds. The best I have seen was some dude on a Turkish forum going up from a nw5 to a nw2. He took minox and high dose of dut. Awesome regrowth but he was a good responder obviously. Like everyone says on here, hold on to what you have as much as possible with current treatments. Waiting around for a cure in 3 years will put you in a worse situstion. Trust me.

    1. Do we believe that creating brand new terminal hairs through Follica’s method is entirely possible? I’m just not sure, otherwise Dr. Cotsarelis would have given a more optimistic forecasts for 2018. 20 de novo terminal hairs per cm2 out of thin air would be groundbreaking, but I just have this feeling that we will be let down on this. After all, why would 20 decide to come through terminal but the rest would be baby hairs? Makes me think that the 20-25 won’t be terminal as we know it to mean. Hope I’m wrong.

      I do like the idea of a ‘screw it’ approach and not trying to fix the damaged follicles which is probably impossible anyway but rather creating new ones. This is why I’m rooting for Follica and T.Tsuji and less interested in the replicels and histogens of this world.

      In Cots and Tsuji we trust. Praying for 2018.

    2. It may be a cure or near cure nobody knows yet. And your dermatologist is not that knowledgeable in my opinion. Working with G. Cotsarelis doesn’t necessarily means that he/she will have access to information concerning Follica. It doesn’t mean Cotsarelis will reveal what’s going on his other work. He is just a colleague.

  52. Someone mentioned telomeres/shortened telomeres. Personally don’t know much about this, but how could this affect T.Tsuji’s hair regeneration? Will T. Tsuji have considered this in his plan? He has always seemed so confident that what he accomplished in mice will translate beautifully in humans.

    1. 1. His boss works for replicel

      2. He isn’t studying jak for aga

      3. he has no idea how much inflammation and aga are correlated

      4. How come anti-inflammatory NSAIDs can do wonders for hair if inflammation isn’t the main culprit.

  53. Hi, please give me some advice. I am 45 years old male. I am Norwood 5 or 5a. I tried propecia and minoxidil but both gave me bad sides, can’t use them anymore. Though there is progress, I don’t see any possibility of MPB cure in the near future. Can FUE (without propecia and minoxidil) be an option for me? Cesare Ragazzi also sounds interesting. But does it look silly (still it is a wig)?

    1. @Seeking Advice

      Assuming your a good candidate for a FUE and assuming your hair loss has reached its final pattern I wouldn’t see why not. But I don’t know what your goals are in terms of coverage aside from many other things so I can’t give you a definitive yes or no answer. You would need to have a consultation with a surgeon as they would be able to obviously give you the best answer. Again there are many factors that come into play but yes some people have transplants and do not take or do not need to take medication.

  54. guys, i still think BHT will be the breakthrough in AGA. we already have enough, it is just tweaking them to scalp hair. honestly how hard would it be?

    1. If body hair transplants were effective I would be cured haha. Just take all the hairs from my thighs lol. Bam nw1 again. Tweaking body hair requires cell manipulation. Another challenge. I thinks it’s easier to cure aids and cancer than mpb. This is some challenging stuff with few people working on it

  55. As for hair being gone for the point of no return is total bs. My dad has been bald nw7 for over 35 years. Just recently he has been sprouting thick terminal hairs on top of his scalp. My mom makes fun of him saying that he will have full hair at 65 lol. I looked closely at his scalp and I can see a ton of small miniaturized hairs all over. These researchers that said once you are bald for a long time these hairs never come back are just saying that because they suck in their research and treatments and can’t figure it out. Cots says your stem cell stay active even when you are bald

  56. Right. Cots claims that and he really has no bias to say that because his method entails producing new follicles, right?

  57. mjones, why do you think that bht is not effective? Have you seen the results from Dr. Umar? Very impressive. There”s even a poster from HLH who had leg hairs transplanted to refine his hairline and the result is amazing.

    Search for “sofarsogood”. That’s his nickname.

    If i am not wrong. Dr. Bisanga performs bht too, with great sucess.

  58. I’d rather be ultra slick bald or have micro pigmentation than have body hair transplanted on my head. Imo thats taking things too far and getting a little to desperate…

  59. Relevant quote from an article released today regarding RiverTown Therapeutics:

    “Hair regeneration and maintenance are complex processes that involve multiple pathways. The components in RT1640 restart the hair growth process and support the nascent and mature hair. The net result is the growth of new hair, even after decades of baldness,” said David E. Weinstein, MD, Ph.D., co-founder, CSO and CMO of RiverTown Therapeutics.

    Link: https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2016/06/29/852352/0/en/RiverTown-Therapeutics-and-6Degrees-Share-Best-In-Show-at-Mid-Atlantic-Bio-Angels-1st-Pitch-Life-Science-Competition.html

  60. Spanky, bht is a good alternative to repair bad hts and to repair strip scars , specially when the patient has poor or zero donor hairs left.

    Why not consider in these cases?

  61. mjones it’s true, i also saw a guy regrowing his crown on stemoxydine, it was bald since like 20 years …

  62. Guys here’s something I was wondering.

    How come wealthy guys are still getting HT if better treatments are within 3,4, 5 years reach? Surely the rich and powerful can easily have access to researchers of any kind and know how close they are.

    When you see millionaires and billionaires having HT in 2016, you can’t help but wonder that real alternatives are much further away then we are led to think. Just a thought.

    1. Believe it or not, the rich do not have access to top researchers in many cases…Donald Trump.

      I just got off work, I work at an academic medical center, which also happens to be doing clinical trials for setiprepant.

      Most of the attending physicians and surgeons are completely bald. Most of the medical researchers are as well. They’re too busy concerning themselves with practicing medicine and research. Many health care professionals also have comb-overs since healthcare is a conservative field.

      Think of how humiliating it would be to be attending to an elderly patient with COPD, hypertension, and was admitted to the hospital for severe stomach cramps, and he is unhappy with the quality of care (for whatever reason) and he states to the attending physician (who is a relatively new practitioner that) , “How can you take care of me, when you can’t even take care of your own hair?”

      Unfortunately, we are all judged on our appearance, and we all make judgments about other persons. The most important thing is for us to catch ourselves in the act and see past other people’s superficial flaws

  63. Doesnt work that way, theres no super secret billionaire cure tucked away in the recesses of the scientific community.

    1. No but impossibly wealthy bald folk could access more indepth information regarding progress of new treatments. Possibly based on that the trend is still for fue (suggesting there is no better treatment on the horizon, or billionaires are highly impatient) ;)

  64. Bioviva Fiji is opening this year taking patients.
    So we can sing forever young without feeling like crap afterwards

    something once thought impossible

      1. baldings “Would bioviva and telomores have any affect on hair?”

        I’m not a scientist but Bill Andrews is and he definitely mentioned ‘male pattern baldness’ in his interview on youtube. Liz also mentions skin condition all the time.

        So according to them. Yes. I wouldn’t know but I presume telomerase elongation would reverse all kind of senescent diseases.. AGA being one.

    1. Yes it is. The before after pics look horrible. Hair lines look pluggy and density really weak. Still looks like they are balding bad

  65. I think that in not distant future I replace Fin ( which gives me gyno) for Brotzu lotion. Some guys tried to use equol but nobody ever tries it n liposomal delivery. And i believe Brotzu that DGLA>minox. The hairline I recreate with FUE. Thats how Im gonnela win with AGA. Of course in my 40s I hope that Tsuji’s method will be available.

  66. With every month a new company or future treatment popping up, the hair loss industry resembles an overcrowded bee hive.

    The question is: When will our long awaited honey be ready busy bees?! And do you understand how much money in our bank is waiting to be spend on that honey?

    I am still expecting maintenance nectar in 2017 and regrowth honey in 2018.

  67. There will never be a cure for hair loss only treatments. Learn to understand that. A 55yr old nw7 will not have the density and hairline of a 16yr old. At least not in the next 50 yrs.

    1. Hopefully guys with mild to moderate balding can recover to a cure or de facto almost cure no?

      I estimate I have lost around 30% density. Assuming I had 110,000 hairs originally, that’s a deficit of some 30-35 thousand hairs.

      Follica claims 25 new terminal hairs per cm2. There are 600 cm2 on the entire head. 25 x 600 = 15,000.

      That would very almost be a cure for me and I would no longer worry about my hair.

      Now, Dr. Takashi Tsuji grew 128 hairs one 1 cm2 on his wonder mouse. Imagine if he could replicate that all over the human scalp. 76, 800 new hairs.

      Seems a little difficult to get one’s head around but Dr. Takashi wouldn’t be continuing the research if he didn’t think he could replicate hairs in the many thousands needed to solve baldness.

      The key for any new treatment is that they don’t cut corners – they must treat the ENTIRE scalp and not just the top or some tiny area at the front. It has to be the entire thing. Weak sides and back are almost as bad as empty top.

    2. Yet thankfully even those select few who believe that no cure will come still visit my blog daily and often entertain me. Plus boost my advertising income. Thank you. I am sincere and not being sarcastic.

  68. I need a regrowth bridge till Tsuji

    Something like:

    2017 – Brotzu; could replace fin and regrowth if the Doctor Brotzu is to be believed

    2018 – Follica; regrowth

    2020 – Replicel; maintenance focused

    Then ultimately Tsuji. The big one. 60,000 hair session (haha)

    1. I agree with that. If you are like a nw3 or lower than I believe you can get very good coverage again if follica can score 100cm2

    2. Throw Histogen in there also.

      Don’t forget, Brotzu was discovered this year and was pretty random. There must be other research that we are not aware of that can pop up. For example that riversomething therapeutics.

  69. The Brotzu picture of the child with aa looks suspicious. In the first before pic it looks like the child’s hair could be bunched up at the top in a bun. It even has the same shape in the before and after pic.

    It could be the top of the head of the adult standing behind the child , but they would have to have a really long neck or a huge head. It doesn’t look right to me.

    1. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s photoshop. Plus who gives drugs like that to a baby. Wouldn’t they do it on an adult with aa? The fact that bronzu is going to be a cosmetic over the counter, don’t expect any miracles. It’s like buying nutrogena acne face wash at your drug store to fight acne. It will help a little but it won’t be as effective as a prescriptiom antibiotics or Accutane to cure it.

      1. Um salycic acid and benzyl peroxide are like the main proven things to keep your skin clear. Accutane is toxic and skin goes back in a year but less severe, antibotics for acne are crappier than the first two over the counters I mentioned. Absolute bs that this wouldnt be good just because itd be offered over the counter. Rogaine is over the counter, and antibiotics and many effective treatments are offered over the counter. Prescription is for more dangerous products or ones requiring specific doses with consultations or are rare. Ie. Propecia, accutane, antidepressants, pain med, blood thinners, etc These are NOT cures either chief.

        1. I will argue that antidepressants can positively change a patient’s life. And while the pill burden can be a hassle, the long term psychotropic effects when a regimen is properly adhered to is substantial

      2. Dude mjones you have faith in histogen but not in brotzu…wow…good on you mate..
        Brotzu is a 80 year old guy with really good reputation..why would he will try to scam any one…and his science makes more sense than that stupid histogen…dr naughty says about proteins and vitamins in her hsc ..really..

      1. It’s hard to see what you’re replying to, but do people there actually think the photo was photoshopped? It seems fairly obvious in the before pic that the girl is sitting on someones lap and that ‘bun’ is the hair of the person’s lap she is sitting on.

        1. The hair seems to grow only out of the back and mid section of the scalp. It looks odd to say the least. And no, like I said, no one really agreed.

  70. People whose hair cycles have been exhausted are doomed to remain bald until the end their life? I do not have any hair because of the depletion of hair cycles and miniaturization of hair follicles until they disappear completely. It’s the end for me?

      1. No! All specialist say the same thing that me.

        AGA will be irreversible.

        Do you write a new post to explain and elaborate this theory please? It is very afraid for me and other guys that are lost all their hair because HAIR CYCLES HAVE BEEN EXHAUSTED.

        Thank you.

    1. No William, it has been already demonstrated that damaged (miniaturized) hair follicles transplanted into the skin of mice (immune deficient) grew big again and became normal healthy hairs. So this proves it’s not irreversible, that’s beyond doubt.

  71. Stemox is working for me for my peach fuzz, which is slowing turning back into terminals. Just waiting for more time for photos (proof). I will post in Dut blog once I’m sure, as it is part of the treatment.

  72. That regrow link seems pretty cool but at what cost really I don’t want to suppress my immune system for hair or burn myself but if it means there’s possibilities of finding regen procedures for a thick safe mane I’m game.

  73. Love the consistent updates! I live in San Francisco, but don’t mind traveling to begin quality treatment. Where can I find recommendations for the best hair transplant surgeons and PRP therapy in the U.S. / my region?

    1. Hey Adam, unfortunately I can’t recommend anyone in particular when it comes to hair transplants. There are many great ones out there nowadays, and you would want to make sure that they are members of the ISHRS. Then you would need to decide on FUE or strip. Then see who is the best in the option you choose from those two. Then decide whether you want ARTAS robot extractions in case the FUE surgeon is doing it that way, or pick another surgeon who does not use ARTAS. Then speak to recent patients and meet them in person, check forum posts on the surgeon etc… Lots of work:-(

      When it comes to PRP, there are probably just around 5-10 highly experienced people in the US that I would trust. Dr. Greco in Florida is the most experienced one as far as I can tell and you can read about him in many of my past posts. However, many people think PRP offers no benefit at all so you have to decide if its worth it.

      Best of luck and keep us posted.

  74. Lets hope the “cure” is nothing like what Shiseido is trying.

    I would not want to be in the hands of a HT doctor to bring me the cure.

  75. i’ll put my faith in the japanese people
    they’re the only ones who seems to take this thing seriously without any bullshit drug with side effects or whatever
    brb to my topical fin right now and see how it goes

  76. Rafael, no because I know that the therapies in the current pipeline are not going to regrow hairlines. Neither are they going to reverse norwoods. Like I said damage control is where we will be at in the near future with regrowth similar to minoxidil, maybe a little bit better.

    And in the distant future when someone like Dr. Tsuji might come with a real good therapy that is capable of delivering unlimited hair follicles, well then that doesn’t matter if you had a HT.

    Hair transplants are here to stay man. They will be at the forefront of hair restoration and are nowhere to be challenged the coming years.

    Look time flies fast. I landed on these forums 4 years ago. Before you’ll know we’ll bet at 2020. You only live once, you can’t relive your youth. Don’t let your years fly by while you are desperately hoping for a future treatment. I have seen people been crushed by that.

    AGA is too beastly for these researchers currently. Remember … Minoxidil is the best hair growth agent, ACCIDENTALLY discovered more than 40 years ago. Anno 2016 we don’t even know how it works yet.. Not only that we can’t even find a hair growth agent that is better.

    Think about that for a second. Just think about that. That’s just comical and sad at the same time. You overestimate these researchers/companies and underestimate the beast of AGA.

    But you know maybe we are lucky and we’ll discover a sick hair growth agent by pure accident. Just like we discovered minoxidil and PGF2A (bimatoprost) by accident to have hair growth properties.

    Current drugs in the pipeline are doomed to fail though. Bimatoprost, setipiprant, and JAK’s are all going to the graveyard.

    AGA rapes companies and researchers just as hard as hair follicles..

    1. No future product or procedure will come to market unless it provides some type of regrowth. Thats the next step. Most, if not all, of the companies currently in trial or in discovery mode like River Town are all claiming regrowth. How much regrowth is the question. In the PureTech documents it states that they’re planning to release a treatment that will compete with hair transplants. That means some regrowth is expected. There’s simply not enough money or motivation for a company to spend countless years and money to release something that will just compete with or be slightly better than fin or minox. Saying current pipeline treatments will just maintain doesn’t even really make sense. Why would something just completely halt further loss without providing some type of regeneration if it’s working to make the follicle healthy again. I don’t think you could have one without the other.

  77. Seems like lots of products coming to market in near future. Even if they don’t work as expected, they might work better together? Like use JAK approved for AA on AGA along with Brotzu one? Atleast we will have few more thing to try, currently many just give up and even don’t care for hair loss as they know nothing gonna help.

  78. Is there any company claiming to grow back Norwoods maybe or are they all focused on damage control? Histogen I thought seemed modest…

  79. I’m sorry but my gut tells me bronzu will just dissappear. Just like kelopesia. If it does make it to market it will have results like neogenic. I still have hope for histogen. She showed regrowth and thickening in her pictures. Yeah there might have been some comb over stuff but there is obvious regrowth. Bronzu just shows a baby with a weird hair growth which looks totally fake in my opinion. Why use a baby? He should use an adult for new drugs. Isn’t there some ethical standards there.

  80. You are correct, Swoop. I have been waiting for better treatments since 2000, when i jonned hairsite.com and heard about dutasteride. But it”s been 20 years under fina, min and ht to fix my temples.

    I thought you had high hopes for histogen and replicel. Anyway, please let us know what do you have in mind to fight the damage without fin. My wife and i are planning to have kids next year and i would like to stop finasteride 3 months before to do not put the fetus at risk.

    Thanks for the help!

  81. @Swoop, why are JAKs going to the graveyard. Didn’t they clearly state that they have seen interesting results and even regrowth when it comes to AGA?

    “We will be developing a topical JAK inhibitor for androgenetic alopecia, and the data on that is quite interesting in that they found that the systemic JAK inhibitor does not work for that particular indication, but the topical does, mainly as a function of the target being more superficial in the skin and not really accessible from a systemic circulation.”

    – Dr. Neal Walker

    Is this just bs?

    1. People have more faith on an Italian doctor who focuses on cardiology than a doctor researcher from a top research university who has been focused on mpb and started a company called follica backed a large venture capital called pure tech to release a novel hair loss treatment. I don’t understand the logic in some people. He will bring us a game changer. He put in the normal time of 12 years for clinical trials to market and has kept quiet like what a normal and professional person would do to keep his successful treatment protected .

      1. But mjones, why did Cots say in an interview that we mustn’t think of future in terms of a cure but rather as new ‘treatments’?

        OK yeah so I get that fixing damaged follicles isn’t close and in that sense a true ‘cure’ is far away, but his method is supposed to bypass this problem by forming brand new hairs!

        I don’t get why he is so coy about using the word ‘cure’ when his development can grow de novo hairs which is the BASIS of a cure.

        1. I think he said that he likes to use the term “treatment,” rather than cure. This is because we have to keep treating the issue to gain what we get back. A cure would mean that you do it once and the problem is solved.

  82. Well something strikes me as strange about follica’s method…

    They say it can create new hair follicles but you will have to apply stuff on your head and perhaps use a home device. Now why would you need to go to that trouble? A hair should grow naturally on it’s own.

    Now if it was only necessary for a short time to help the new hairs develop, okay. But if you must manually maintain them forever then they are not functioning as normal hairs.

    1. Because its not a cure buddy. If it can grow you 100cm2 hair I wouldn’t mind up keeping them with a home device. These hairs are growing on a mpb zone of the scalp. They will be attacked by dht more than likely. That’s why he said a home device with an app. Probably a schedule on when to wound again to keep them active and healthy. Give me 100cm2 growth on top of what I have and I will be a happy camper:)

      1. Haha OK yeah.

        All I’m trying to work out is whether new hairs would be indistinguishable from existing hairs, or if they will be somehow inheritenly weaker. If it’s the latter then that would make for less attractive option.

        I don’t mind doing home treatment but I would rather hang onto ALL the hair, whether the originals or regenerated, with basic propecia.

    2. Can be both, a cure and a treatment to the cure maintenance.. and that is what would make it awesome from the business point of view. As is always said, a cure doesn’t interest the market but a treatment that solves the problem – and that for me is a cure, if I get all of my hair back I don’t mind spreading shit on my head on a daily basis for the rest of my life!!! if I get it back it’s cure and f it… I don’t mind if it is a treatment as long as it works.

  83. i think that any kind of treatment that gives a better results than what we are using today is welcome.

    for a complete cure i am sure that our kids will have more chances if not the cure itself

  84. Only hope for Shiseido to work is if they were secretly working on a similar therapy to Replicel and the technologies were sufficiently similar that Shiseido decided to buy them out instead of facing legal problems later. Because I don’t think Replicel’s method will work on it’s own, even if it was aiming in the right direction (multiplying cells from follicles in the back of the head).

  85. There are so many news and researches going on, why still most people are in panic and saying 20-40 year away?

    I started following just before 2 years so not sure if this amount of force in research is there from 2001? It must have increased and progressed, don’t see any reason to be such depressed.

    1. Yes that’s what I think. Wasn’t there in 2001 but pretty sure it wasn’t like it is now. There were a few “false prophets” like Gho in the 00s.

      I think T.Tsuji is the real deal and while there is no guarantee of his success, his positive outlook about hair regeneration is cause for optimism. Tsuji will know if it works or not by 2025 at the latest (more like 2022).

      If his method doesn’t work then yeah I will say it is out of reach.

  86. I read the PureTech document where it said they can create 100 new hairs per cm2 using Follica’s skin perturbation.

    Sorry but I can’t buy that. 100 new hairs per cm2 would be 20,000+ new hairs on the top of the scalp. That would make hair transplants redundant overnight. I call bullshit.

    1. While you are talking here. People are working very hard. Please continue. Thanks. More good news are coming.

    2. If it were to work like – and we have no idea how good it’s going to be yet – then yes it would and it would make their hiring of Washenik to be quite clever. If – and it’s a big if right now – Follica works well then you can bet hair transplant clinics will be offering this procedure.

      But until next year (or unless someone who blogs or uses social media gets in on the trial starting sometime in the next 6 months and can fill us in), we have no idea what Follica have got to offer. The language in the puretech docu does seem to suggest that this is something that will be big but then again, they’re talking it up to their stakeholders.

      1. @Mike. There is much competition. And nobody is obliged to provide information. It may be confidential.

        1. @Paul P Don’t get wrong, I don’t expect any new info to come out for a long while nor do I “demand” it like some people do. It’s like pics or it didn’t happen but more on that point later.

          We heard nothing about the previous 3 trials apart from the one in Germany and I’d guess that the only bit of news we’ll get this year is regarding the new hires at Follica. VP of Clinical and Product development.

          I personally believe Follica are the best hope on the horizon and I’m not really drawn in by the naysayers who shit on Jaks and the like with their bro science. But! And there is a but, we really don’t know how good their treatment is. I mean, we do need a before and after pic to be blown away but that, if all goes well, won’t come for some time.

          I think their silence over the years has been on the whole a good thing. If they truly have a viable treatment for hairloss, then it’s understandable. Still a long road ahead and many questions to be answered but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a healthy but sceptical dose of optimism for the future. See also Luis Garza’s study from last year which bolsters the wounding/demabrasion approach.

      2. Bells. In the pure tech doc it discusses how follica procedure will be performed by other clinics, most likely ht doctors. There is no way cots can perform all of this at his office haha. He is going to lease out his procedure to ht docs all over the place so it can be used by everyone due to high demand. Very smart move on cots to keep ht industry on his side. If he didn’t the ht industry would fight him to the end to block his treatment. Joining forces will make them both rich and open the doors to much better results. Imagine wounding scalp and getting 12k new hairs or more then adding ht if you need more density. Not sure how much 100cm2 squared hair equals out to on the scalp but it sounds like good amount.

        1. All that would be a dream. Everyone would be happy. Also I see no reason why the follica couldn’t be repeated over again.

          So I hope people who say that all we can look forward to in next 5 years is better maintenance will be pleasantly surprised!

          All I hope is that the 100 hairs per cm2 came straight from Cots and wasn’t some type of guesstimate by PureTech.

          But I wonder if they’ll be able to target the whole scalp. In tests, Cots found that hair grew in the middle of the wound. Maybe that would lead to concentrated areas of hairs interspersed with empty areas.

          1. If it is compoundable it is CURE.. if one gets about 100 hairs (terminal ones) per cm in one set that may be possible again after some while it’s to be supposed isn’t it? so depending on the degree of the hair loss in case, after one or two or three or whatever sets one would get the normal density, the original or even better… I mean, that theoretically speaking…

        2. Take a white piece of paper and draw a 1cm^2 square on it. Take a pencil and dot 100 small dots within that square. You will find that that is great density. If Follica can do this, we are looking at a “near cure” level treatment.

        3. “Very smart move on cots to keep ht industry on his side. If he didn’t the ht industry would fight him to the end to block his treatment.”

          Can you cite any precedents or in fact provide any evidence whatsoever to back up your claim that can at best be described ‘nonsensical’?

          1. And what makes one think that Follica will be partners with the “ht industry” where did one takes that ??

  87. @ William

    Check your scalp closely with 2 mirrors or let someone do it for you.
    Do you see follicle openings / pores on every single cm2 of your head?

    If yes, you don’t seem to have any scar tissue or fibrosis, which means the theory that Admin has posted, is valid.
    You might be able to regrow your old hair. Old hairs coming back.

    For those who see cm2’s where there are no follicles openings / pores anymore, you probably have irreversible hair loss due to scarring, meaning that Follica or Shiseido or Tsuji or HT are needed. New hairs.

    I hope that it is any relieve when you check your scalp.

      1. Whether you encounter any form of scarring (alopecia) or any form of fibrosis mainly depends on your genes, as always.

        Dr. Jeff Donovan has pretty good pictures on his instagram account about especially, but not only, scarring alopecia’s.
        https://www.instagram.com/donovanmedical/
        Just take a look.

        Only a small percentage of hair loss sufferers does not have AGA or AA or TE, in which scarring normally doesn’t take place. So the majority of us can only try to keep the HF’s alive with the stuff that is now on the market. Try to prevent as much damage as you can.

        People with scarring alopecia however have/need other treatment options like injections, mentioned on Jeff Donovans page.

    1. Ok thank you, but it’s difficult to see popenings / pores same with two mirrors. I am don’t sure to see this.

      If all my cells are dead, do you think that the futurs treatment will be effective for me?

        1. MPB AKA Androgenetic Alopecia IS REVERSIBLE. Thanks. That’s a great point. Everyone in the field of androgenetic / alopecia hair loss should know. Update your knowleadge…please.

          1. Yep but I have not a AGA. I have a medicinal diffuse alopecia. I lost ALL my hair because I took bad medicament (Prozac, Risperidone, Concerta, etc.) during many years at very very very very very high dose. Do you think that is reversible with futurs treatment same if my hair cycle are exhausted (matrix cells are dead)?

      1. Hello William,

        – Let someone else check your scalp like a dermatologist or
        – Take pictures outside from your head with your smartphone. You can enlarge the pictures on your desktop computer to check for pores / follicle openings

        If you see them on every cm2, you don’t have scarring.
        That is good news. The bad news is, we all are waiting for science to crack the signal which is needed to restart the terminal growth again.

        1. Okay thank you, I will check for this.
          Also, I have a lot of itching. Is this evidence of healing ?

          1. It’s possible that you have a combination of types of hairloss.
            1. Hairloss due to medication +
            2. AGA
            But this is all guessing, therefore rather ask a dermatologist.

            Probably you have the same itch / scalp pain / inflammation as a certain proportion of AGA sufferers has as well. Even the doctors are still not sure what the exact factors and steps in the AGA hair loss process are.

            My simplified assumption is: first DHT chokes and shrinks the hair follicle, the skin reacts with targeted inflammation and finally the immune system attacks and shuts everything down completely at the balding site. You may feel an itchy, stingy, painful, bruised, inflamed or burning scalp.

            However some might still disagree with this. Either way, I still think the immune system plays an important role in AGA, just like in AA, Scarring Alopecia, Seb Dermatitis, Psoriasis, Vitiligo, Reum Artritis and Crohn’s Disease.

            There is the JAK inhibitor family again: Welcome to the ITINIB’s !

          2. Oups.. I don’t write the good word. Cicatrization, not Healing. I am Quebecker, I speak French. My English is bad, sorry.

            No, I have not AGA, It’s sure. Nothing in my family loose hair. Dht is not the problematic. I have blood test for dht and the result is negative, and I try finasteride during two years and I have not effect.

            It’s a really medicinal alopecia and I am scared that my matrix cells are all dead. If my matrix cells are all dead, what futur treatment can help me?

  88. Some guys on an Italian forum seem to be making their own home version of brotzus lotion. One dude has posted pics – he seems to have grown a few hundred vellus hairs and some terminal hairs. He is a pretty advanced norwood and I think 40 yo.

    1. there is some guy called emanuelesharon in the italian forum claiming making similar lotion of brotzu. he talked about his home made lotion in the main brotzu thread of the ieson forum then he decide to creat a new thread.
      http://www.ieson.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=70491

      he claim that vellus hair appear where it was before silk bald spot. there is lot of hype about this homemade lotion in the italian forum.

      i’m not italian but i used google translator.

        1. @22 MPB AKA Androgenetic Alopecia IS REVERSIBLE. Thanks. That’s a great point. Everyone in the field of androgenetic / alopecia hair loss should know.

  89. Hi Moderator,

    Excellent blog, really comprehensive. Could I suggest something? I’d be great if you built a page listing out the leading treatments that you think are the top contenders for providing a cure or significant regrowth, and summarizing where they are in the pipeline and which companies are researching and developing them. Kinda like the “Roundups” tab on Macrumors.com as an example.

    1. Thanks Guy. You are probably the fifth person to request that! Maybe in several months after I finish a big project in my life.

  90. baldings “Would bioviva and telomores have any affect on hair?”

    I’m not a scientist but Bill Andrews is and he definitely mentioned ‘male pattern baldness’ in his interview on youtube. Liz also mentions skin condition all the time.

    So according to them. Yes. I wouldn’t know but I presume telomerase elongation would reverse all kind of senescent diseases.. AGA being one.

  91. Admin, are you going to post about the results of hasson and wongs topical finasteride? How safe and effective is it for rapidly thinning hair?
    Thanks

  92. Follica and Aclaris, maybe the two together, are where to look at as the bulls eye of our hopes of a new good treatment, in my opinion…

  93. I went to a very good ht dr and he said that his friend in England did clone follicles successfully (after getting 5 million pound from the government )but the body refused the follicles and did not accept it. Then I asked him do you think hair cloning will be available in the next 10 years, he said FOR SURE !

      1. They have been cloning hairs unsuccessfully like that since the early 2000s. Body rejects, incorrect hair direction, won’t cycle correctly etc . I agree with admin it sounds like Jahoda or old intercytex news from 2007

        1. Did Jahida try to clone the hairs in a petrie dish? Maybe that’s why they failed.

          Hopefully Tsuji’s injectable hair germ method will work a lot better (as it did in his mouse).

  94. Hmm I wonder why Shiseido decided to trust replicel in the first place.

    Replicel people!

    Yes I know it cost Shiseido peanuts to buy the method, but even so, didn’t they see straight through the bs of Hoffman and co? These guys are nothing but bandit opportunists with zero evidence their crap worked.

    I can only imagine that a language barrier issues helped mask replicel’s unprofessionalism during business negotiations in Japan.

    1. I’m sure the Japanese knew their treatment wasn’t that great but they knew the missing piece to it perhaps. Hopefully they tweaked it to make it successful. Japanese are really smart and I doubt they would spend money to buy sonething that has no chance of success. Maybe that’s why they took so long to start trials. Fix the missing replicrap I mean replicel couldn’t figure out. We shall see? I just want some follica to fill in my diffuse loss. Man if Samumed was released this year that would have been cool. Stop further balding and 10% growth. That would help so many of us hold on to what we have till follica or tsuji. I don’t understand why the hair loss industry has to be so freaking disappointing. Such a huge demand and we just have 2 lousy treatments.

      1. Absolutely, I hope the Japanese tweaked the replicrap to make it good lol.

        Anyway, I never understood how replicel had the rights to a technique using hair cells from the back of the head? How did they own such a common sense concept?!

        Maybe Hoffman just got in there real early in the 00s and patented this wide ranging concept. The basis seems sound but replicrap clearly didn’t know how to make it work. Ans how could they? They are basically the Hoffman and that McEltree dude who nobody knows much about. And Lee Buckler lol.

        How were these three donuts meant to know what to do lol.

  95. Hello guys.

    Did you see the pictures of the guy who’s been using a homemade version of Brotzu lotion? It’s not quite the same ingredients as Fidia will be using but similar. This guy is 46 years old and the first pic is at 10 days of usage and third pic is at 50 days.

    http://www.ieson.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=70491&whichpage=1

    When I saw the last pic, ive got to say, my interest in Brotzu lotion went up. To me, it looks like he has recovered some vellus hairs? He looks a bit little bit less bald?

    Bearing in mind its only 50 days in, using a ghetto home version of Brotzu. It looks kinda promising to me.

    Sure the lighting and angles are not quite the same, but there IS a difference there right? It’s not like kelopesia level, i.e. no change.

    He said he would post another progress pic in 20 days.

  96. there is an other guy in the italian forum called ‘spatolatorefolle ‘which will make the lotion from a professional laboratory based on the research of Dr. brotzu.

    you can take a look at his blog writting in italy: rivoluzionecapelli DOT blogspot DOT it

    he is updating his blog frequently. he had a meeting with this laboratory by 18 june. and his trying to make this lotion legal something like patent.

    the last post in his blog was the 29 june and he said that the laboratory/doctor called him and told him that the next week the necessasary component for the lotion will arrive.

    he says that soon he’s going to write an article in English, with this informations.

    1. keep us updated for those who can not read Italian! I like this as a far superior product to min. that would actually be worth the inconvenience of putting on you scalp daily. Min isn’t worth it. Would be cool if they combined this with Follica’s method just to see what happens…

  97. I started fin 3 months ago and my hair is getting even more diffuse. I don’t think there will be much improvement fron fin and even if there was a little, it would not make much cosmetic difference.

    It would be truly wonderful if Brotzu’s lotion could fill in my diffuse scalp in a cosmetically significant way.

    Then I could forget about hair for the time being and wait for the big regeneration treatment/s, i.e. Shiseido, Follica or RIKEN.

  98. I kinda feel like we are meant to be bald and a cure isn’t a possibility the more I think about it. It’s really a natural process that had to be a product of evolution at some point even tho it feels like it’s the stupidest jab at reproduction for cosmetic concerns. Anything we do to try and reverse it will ultimately end in the body trying to correct what is foreign to its programmed fate. Some people call it a disease but a disease almost every male inherits has at some point seems like a stretch. I totally hope I’m wrong but with all the ups and downs and really none of us for sure know if there is any progress to any of these company’s just he said she claims… it’s like looking for your glasses in the dark with a blindfold on.

    1. The body will eventually defeat drugs entering the body like Propecia or Rogaine. They lose their effectiveness for many after x amount of years. However, treatments like follica, replicrap, susheido, tsuji are cellular and using non dht cells, these will trick the body to grow resistant hair to dht. So technically a cure if they can make it grow 70,000 hairs lol

    1. Great,

      They mention “to be launched in Japan and other Asian countries in 2018”, meaning that we probably can go to more places in Asia in 2018. That may prevent extensive waiting lists.

      This is worth the waiting, especially when it really would be offered for 100.000 yen. Around $975 or €875! That is a small fraction of the amount you have to pay for a HT!

      But now the photos …

  99. If we can get thick regrowth with drugs and the drugs stay effective for 10 yrs then that will work too. Just as long as a new treatment comes out every ten years so the body has something new.

  100. Atherosclerosis is to my knowledge has nothing to do with evolution but may be genetic and lifestyle factors. Like all heart diseases it is thought to be very well remedied or at least mostly preventable by lifestyle changes such as excersize and diet and even after being diagnosed is said to greatly improve by changing these factors omega 3s aerobic you know the commercials. However mpb effects 95 percent of males whereas I suspect heart disease effects alot less and although we have seen alot of rub on the Internet with natural remedies I am skeptical on anyone saying with 3 days a week running around the block and taking my multivitamin lately my nw5 has gone back to my teenage line or hey everyone knows if you stay healthy you’ll never have hair loss i mean that’s what everythings natural preventative measure is however it doesn’t work for mpb as far as I know. Like I said I hope I’m wrong cuz I’d love my shaggy blonde hair back but listening to all this stuff just makes me not wanna get my hopes up too high.

  101. I’m going ahead and using as many natural topical Jak3 inhibitors as I can find. B&T psoriaflora creme & a goldenseal shampoo as of today. There’s a British hair product company with a whole line of Oregon Grape lotions and shampoos that I want to try as well. Maybe the only way it’s effective is pharmaceutical strength but im not going to wait around for clinical trials when this stuff is already available in homeopathic form, in hair products even… Its not like I’m trying to regrow a bald spot (yet) just want some thickening. I just started minoxidil too so I’m a bad test case. I just want other JAK believers to know there’s some options if you want a head start with this stuff.

  102. Anyone here with information about surgeons in Europe which perform good body hair transplants or w/e it’s called

  103. So how long before we have something better than minoxidil and Finastride?

    I’m doing PRP and Finastride and minoxidil, diffuse thinner. shit sucks fams, thank god im tall but i need to gain some wait or im gonna look like slenderman

  104. Also the doctor said that he has been working on hair cloning for 15 years now. then I asked him why did not he put that in the news ? He said because he does not want to raise people hope. This means there are researchers that are working under the radar.

  105. @Admin: what is your estimated date of a cure? do you firmly believe we can see it in next 5-10 years?
    Besides JAK, what do you believe in most?

  106. “He states that the treatment is more effective with people under age of 30 with a total stop of hair loss and regrowth”

    That’s one hell of a claim for Brotzu. If it’s true, hopefully it’ll come out sooner than later. I’ll be 30 in another 5 years….

  107. Okay, so here is a revamped version of what I tried posting a few weeks ago.
    Most of this will involve listings of recent clinical trials, and I also wanted to post an article about a topical delivery vehicle. I have access to the full text versions of any article that I list here as pdf’s, so it’d be cool if we could find a way to share them (I don’t want to be emailing a whole bunch of files).

    1. (2016). “Bee Venom Promotes Hair Growth in Association with Inhibiting 5α-Reductase Expression.”. Biological & pharmaceutical bulletin (0918-6158), 39 (6), p. 1060.
    (The article states that: Bee venom inhibited the expression of SRD5A2, which encodes a type II 5α-reductase that plays a major role in the conversion of testosterone into dihydrotestosterone. Moreover, bee venom stimulated proliferation of hDPCs and several growth factors (insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), fibroblast growth factor (FGF)2 and 7) in bee venom-treated hDPCs dose dependently compared with the control group minoxidil 2%. In conclusion, bee venom is a potentially potent 5α-reductase inhibitor and hair growth promoter.)

    2. A bibliometric study of scientific literature in Scopus on botanicals for treatment of androgenetic alopecia Journal of cosmetic dermatology
    1473-2130
    Date: 2016 ,Volume: 15, Issue: 2, Page: 120-130
    (In conclusion, this is the first study in which a biblio-
    metric analysis was been made, in order to evaluate
    citation trends and most cited papers for medical plants
    used for treatment of androgenetic alopecia. Specifi-
    cally, the study has taken account of botanicals that
    inhibit the 5-alpha-reductase, such as Camelia sinensis,
    Carthamus tinctorius Puerariae flos, Red ginseng, that
    stimulate hair growth, such as Serenoa repens, Ginkgo
    biloba and that inhibit the inflammation, such as
    Malus domestica, Cuscuta reflexa roxb, Boehmeria
    nipononivea, Rosmarinus officinalis, Citrullus colo-
    cynthis, Citrus bergamia risso, Tobacco, Thujae occi-
    dentalis, Crataegus pinnatifida
    In conclusion, this is the first study in which a biblio-
    metric analysis was been made, in order to evaluate
    citation trends and most cited papers for medical plants
    used for treatment of androgenetic alopecia. Specifi-
    cally, the study has taken account of botanicals that
    inhibit the 5-alpha-reductase, such as Camelia sinensis,
    Carthamus tinctorius Puerariae flos, Red ginseng, that
    stimulate hair growth, such as Serenoa repens, Ginkgo
    biloba and that inhibit the inflammation, such as
    Malus domestica, Cuscuta reflexa roxb, Boehmeria
    nipononivea, Rosmarinus officinalis, Citrullus colo-
    cynthis, Citrus bergamia risso, Tobacco, Thujae occi-
    dentalis, Crataegus pinnatifida
    (In conclusion, this is the first study in which a bibliometric analysis was been made, in order to evaluate citation trends and most cited papers for medical plants used for treatment of androgenetic alopecia. Specifi- cally, the study has taken account of botanicals that inhibit the 5-alpha-reductase, such as Camelia sinensis, Carthamus tinctorius Puerariae flos, Red ginseng, that stimulate hair growth, such as Serenoa repens, Ginkgo biloba and that inhibit the inflammation, such as Malus domestica, Cuscuta reflexa roxb, Boehmeria nipononivea, Rosmarinus officinalis, Citrullus colocynthis, Citrus bergamia risso, Tobacco, Thujae occidentalis, Crataegus pinnatifida. Among these botanicals, the study objectively demonstrated that Camelia sinensis (epigallocatechin- 3-gallate), Serenoa repens, Citrullus colocynthis and Cuscuta reflexa were those most considered. Finally, the study demonstrated a growing interest for this topic).
    – citation: Mariangela Rondanelli, MD, PhD,1 Simone Perna, PhD,1 Gabriella Peroni, RDNs,1 & Davide Guido, PhD1,2,3 1 Endocrinology and Nutrition Unit, Section of Human Nutrition, Department of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, Azienda di Servizi alla Persona, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy 2 Medical and Genomic Statistics Unit, Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy 3 Biostatistics and Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Department of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Will continue this thread with another post.

  108. 3. Adipose-derived SVF for Treatment of Alopecia. https://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT02626780

    “In 2001, however, the understanding of the potential of these SVF cells greatly changed as Zuk et al. demonstrated the ability of these cells to undergo not only adipogenic differentiation but also chondrogenic, myogenic, and osteogenic differentiation. 16 These cells were eventually renamed adipose-derived stromal cells or ASCs. Similar to MSCs, ASCs have also been shown to differentiate into cardiac cells and even neural progenitor cells in vitro . 161718The multipotency of ASCs has grown tremendously since these early studies as scientists continue to fine-tune and improve the differentiation of each pathway.” (BOOK CHAPTER
    Stem cells and regenerative medicine. Benjamin Levi, Derrick C. Wan, Victor W. Wong, Geoffrey C. Gurtner and Michael T. Longaker
    Plastic Surgery, 13, 212-239.e8)

    4. Phase 2A Study of Setipiprant Tablets in Androgenetic Alopecia in Males

    First received on May 20, 2016. Last updated on May 20, 2016.
    Purpose
    This study will evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of the oral administration of setipiprant tablets 1000 mg twice daily (BID) relative to placebo and active comparator, finasteride 1 mg once daily, in 18 to 41 years old males with androgenetic alopecia (AGA).

    https://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT02781311

  109. If jak inhibitors pass the fda approval for aa, shouldn’t it pass clinical trials for safety in aga, it could go into fda approval with only clinical trials for efficacy.
    Jak came like from nowhere, and i wouldnt be suprised when it would be on the market for aga sooner than we thought.

    1. It is possible you could get prescribed it off-label if docs think it is safe enough in general. This would probably be the case if they approve it for something else that is relatively benign like psoriasis.

      1. Psoriasis causes detrimental psychosocial effects on people just like hair loss does. Calling psoriasis benign might offend some.

        Honestly, since tofacitinib is FDA approved for oral use, it may be possible to have a dermatologist (the patient would have to have an excellent relationship with the prescriber…liability if adverse drug reaction occurs). The medication order would have to be called into a compounding pharmacy, and the only way I could see this happening is at a major hospital/medical center. The dermatologist would call in the order to the inpatient compounding pharmacy, it would then need to be curiorred to the derm office (whether it’s in the hospital or off-site). The derm would then apply it to the patient’s scalp, and would characterize it as an experimental treatment (honestly I see all kinds of weird experimental treatments where I work; lavender aromatherapy for healing in the elderly; beet juice extract for certain cancer patients; leeches for various reasons; etc.) The ointment/cream could then either be sent home with the patient and/or another might be made for the patient to pick up at the hospitals/medical centers outpatient pharmacy.

        But the dermatologist(s) would have to consider the cost, how to make the topical (cream, ointment), and determine which delivery vehicle use in the base of the topical to prevent excessive systemic absorption.

  110. 5. CLINICAL TRIAL (Cortexolone 17a-propionate: A new antiandrogen acting on hair dermal papilla cells)
    A Phase 2 Study to Evaluate the Safety and Efficacy of CB-03-01 Solution, a Comparator Solution and Vehicle Solution in Males With Androgenetic Alopecia

    First received on October 7, 2014. Last updated on June 15, 2016.

    Purpose

    In this proof-of-concept study, the safety and efficacy of a solution formulation will be investigated in male subjects with androgenetic alopecia (AGA) after twice daily application for up to 26 weeks.

    6. Astressin-B? DS laboraties sells a topical astressin B in the United States.
    The package inset that accompanies the DS product states:
    – What about future research involving astressin-B? Most research planned for astressin-B involves systemic use as an oral or injectable medication. More treatments, developed and marketed as drugs, may appear in coming years. Spectral F7, however, is a comestic treatment available today.
    – Is the 15 parts permillion an effective dose of astressin-B? The 15 ppm of astressin-B found in Spectral F7 is higher than the concentration of most peptides found in topical products. The widely used biotinoyl tripeptide-1, for example, is recommended at a concentration of 5 ppm, and topical products usually contain between 2.5 and 5 ppm. The 15 ug daily dose of astressin-B in Spectral F7 (10 sprays twice per day) is three times as much as the 5 ug daily dose injected into mice during the published study. Nanosome encapsulation further potentiates the delivery of astressin-B in Spectral F7.
    – Is astressin-B a potential cure? Used as directed, astressin-B complements and optimizes a broad-spectrum therapy for greatest possible results. It is unlikely to be a cure by itself, however, since dozens of variables contribute to follicular dysfunction. While the initial media coverage has been exciting, the important clinical research has only just begun. A realistic projection, based on studies underway at DS laboratories, is that topical astressin-B will become an important tool in the arsenal against hair problems. With consistent application, many users may enjoy noticeable improvement.

    Here is an article on astressin-B that was published in February of 2016:

    Characterization of Multisubstituted Corticotropin Releasing Factor (CRF) Peptide Antagonists (Astressins)

    Judit Erchegyi†, Lixin Wang‡, Jozsef Gulyas†, Manoj Samant†, Marilyn H. Perrin†, Kathy Lewis†, Charleen Miller†, Joan Vaughan†, Cynthia Donaldson†, Wolfgang Fischer†, William Low†, Seiichi Yakabi‡, Hiroshi Karasawa‡, Yvette Taché‡, Catherine Rivier†, and Jean Rivier*†

    J. Med. Chem., 2016, 59 (3), pp 854–866
    DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.5b00926
    Publication Date (Web): January 20, 2016
    Copyright © 2016 American Chemical Society
    ______________________________________________________________

    “AstB and its analogues show similar potency as the nonselective antagonist Ast8 at inhibiting the intracellular cAMP accumulation stimulated by 10 nM hCRF in AtT-20 cells expressing CRF-R1 receptor” – Pretty much cAMP (cyclic adenosine monophosphate) is a secondary messenger in the human body that is involved in many physiological pathways, the only one that I can think of off the top of my head at the moment is cAMP/cGMP affect on vasodilation via induction of Nitric oxide synthase by l-arginine, which then produces nitric oxide which then stimulate adenylyl cyclase (g protein signaling), which causes the production of cAMP which then causes relaxation of smooth vascular muscles (viagra). Anyways. I know this was long, but just wanted to share it,.

    1. AND I am not implying that astressin-b effects blood vessels. Overall it is just blocking the negative effects of cortisol (the longterm stress hormone)

        1. Actually the pics on the DS labs Mexico website look promising. But you know, here in the US everything has to look perfect at first glance.

          In light of every completed clinical trial or study that had been posted on this forum by anyone, there is a major factor that is not being discussed (And I won’t/can’t fault anyone for this). STATISTICAL ANALYSES. What type of statistical testing was used in a study, how TRUELY random was the selection of participants, was there selection bias? What journal was the article published in (the more reputable the journal the better)? Was all participant data included in the results or only those that managed to participate for the entire study? Were the results statistically significant? Were the results clinically significant?

    1. The topical spectral F7 yes. And in the package insert that comes with the topical, as I stated above, it says that spectral F7 is marketed as a cosmetic agent. And any future treatments (oral, such as integra) would be marketed as drugs. Which is why I posted on here a few weeks ago that i tried purchasing integra from their website (which the link also happens to be posted above) but they said they could not sell it to me because that would be illegal in the United States. So I’m not sure what they’re planning with integra for the US.

      1. I can be bought online when you are in Europe now, while 2 weeks ago it could not be added to the online shopping cart. The website states it is not FDA approved, is it still a cosmetic then?

        1. Interesting because the DS labs US website once again states “not for sale” when earlier today it stated “add to cart”

  111. Thanks Admin for such an interesting and valuable blog. You r doing an awesome work. Do you have any update of Samumed ariund their phase IIb clinical trials??? Looks like they are dead by now :-(

  112. Hi all, id like to know what is the hold up with setipiprant trial? Many of you have been talking it up for a while now but trials still have not begun nor have they started enrolling anyone.
    second question: when is this brotzu lotion supposed to be available?
    Thank you

    1. Setiprepant will actually be administered via the clinical trial at the hospital I work at (one of half a dozen hospitals the trial will be taking place at in the US). However, curiosity, even if driven by altruism does not justify for me to go snooping around. The details of the clinical trial are protected under HIPAA (can be very complicated). With that said….I will say no more. “Big brother is always watching”

      I will say that with as much hair loss that is going on, and because of the prestige of the hospital where I work, the clinical trial will move forward accordingly.

  113. Phil Collins thanks for responding. Will you be participating in the trial? I hope to however I fear i will be part of the finasteride group which is a big no no to me due to intolerable sides.

    1. No I will not be participating in the trial, since I do not meet the inclusion criteria. I’ll be sure to post any pertinent updates that may pass through the grapevine

  114. Six million is not a big deal, if funding is the only problem try to get in contact with ambani group in india, am sure they always welcome fine business approach.

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