Bear in mind this is not evasive treatment unlike many others that are in the pipeline. If they can replicate consistency, it would be the first ever treatment for hair loss. We know that finasteride and minoxidil don’t treat hair loss.
I think that combination of this procedure as well as Follica and Histogen will be our best bet for this decade. I think this is the furtherst science can get to at the moment.
I think from 2030 onwards we can expect real breakthrough in the field of molecules and stem cells.
But this decade will be spent on creating viable protocols. There will be more failures along the road like Tsuji and Replicel, but someone will pick up and go from there.
Can’t believe people are still talking about Follica and Histogen after 15 years of a big fat nothing from these two companies. Histogen is plagued with lawsuits and Follica is slick marketing strategies paired with vaporware.
What exactly is it about these two, especially Follica, that intrigues people so much? Anyone can go out and get a dermaroller and then put minoxidil foam on your scalp (minoxidil does treat hair loss - it’s not super effective or efficient, but it does treat it). So what’s so great about Follica? Have they discovered some mysterious compound that grows hair? NO. At the end of the day the only thing they have is advice - put tiny wounds on your scalp. Anybody can give you that advice, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist.
I understand why people are not happy about Follica. And I’m not saying they have a magic bullet. But if Follica means dermaroller and minoxidil, then this is exactly what we are going to have for this decade. And attempts to grow hair from cells did even worse. It’s counting 20 years +.
So if Follica amounts to a dermaroller and minoxidil, then we can do that right now. we don’t need to order an expensive kit from Follica to do it.
As far as growing hair from cells, it works, but the thing that’s slowing it down is the requirement that the hairs grow perfectly all in the same direction. They can do this, but it makes these procedures much more complicated and they’ll take much longer to be approved.
I never suggested nor ever claimed that Follica is dermaroler and minoxidil. Yet I read over and over again people claiming that.
So Intercytex, Aderans, Replicel, Shiseido, Tsuji they all managed to solve inductivity issue, regrew lots of hair but failed to figure out hair direction issue. And that is why they decided to fold it.
Is that correct?
@Otter Follica isn’t literally a dermaroller and minoxidil, but their plans are for it to be something very close. For the dermaroller part, they’ve developed their own device. So what? If all you need to do is make small wounds in the tissue, any device that can do that is good enough, and there are a lot of cheap dermarollers already on the market. You don’t need to pay some premium price for making holes on your head just to make Follica and its investors wealthy.
As far as the hair-growth compound that they’d like to use with the device, it has now been about 11 or 12 years since Follica first announced its licensing of Dr Cotsarelis’ patent. Remember, the patent does NOT include a specific compound, it just says “make some pricks in your scalp with a device and then add Compound X and you’ll grow hair.” The problem is that they have never found that Compound X. The patent lists a bunch of PROSPECTIVE compounds (anything from Minoxidil, Lithium, anti-androgenics, and a huge list of other possible compound).
But in all this time, in 11+ years, they haven’t settled on the “perfect” chemical compound to use with whatever device they’re planning on selling. Eleven years!!
That’s because they have not developed any really promising drug… So now will probably have to lean on some EXISTING drug that’s already been approved. Something like … MINOXIDIL. In fact, you were the first one to bring up “Minoxidil” in one of your posts above, not me.
Even if it’s not Minox., it’ll be some other existing drug, because if they have their own drug in the works, THEY WOULD HAVE ANNOUNCED IT BY NOW.
Since they have not announced their own drug, there are only 2 other possibilities:
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They don’t have their own drug… OR
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They have a drug, but since it’s brand new, it’ll still take 5-10 years to get approved… not starting today, but starting the day they file the application… which may be tomorrow, may be 1-2 years from now, may be more. So you can start the 5-10 year count from that date.
My money is not on EITHER of the above, my money is that they will lean on some existing drug or compound, maybe a choice of a few.
But if they do that, then they are really a nothingburger, because I don’t need to buy ANYTHING from Follica to do that. I can buy the drug over the counter or with a prescription - not from Follica but just at the drug store. And I don’t need their damn “device” because I can get a dermaroller probably at a fraction of the price.
So we’re just back at square one is what I’m saying.
It looks to me like Follica is just dermaroller with minoxidil all dressed up in fancy marketing and having clinicians make the initial holes in your scalp, monitor your use of minox, and paying Follica (and the clinic) lots of money for this.
I agree with you on your Follica appraisal. But you missed my point.
I’m not saying Follica did not spend too much time developing it but because Tsuji, Replicel and Shiseido badly failed, especially newbies in this “business of what to do with my hair loss” are going to keep trying with dermaroler and minoxidil this whole decade. I guarantee you.
Besides, we are all at different stages of balding.
In fact, if I had to choose from Tsuji, HairClone or Follica to have 5 hairs regrown, I would choose Follica method.
With all the attempts to regrow hair from cells on regular basis, there were a lot of bubbles in the water so far.
I wouldn’t lump Tsuji, Replicel and Shiseido all together. Replicel is connected to Shiseido because Shiseido has a licensing agreement to use Replicel’s treatment if it turns out to work (that is highly doubtful now as preliminary results have been very bad).
Tsuji is completely different project. The only negative data points we have on Tsuji are that for some reasons human clinical trials have been postponed twice so now they’re about 2 years behind their original schedule. Also Dr Tsuji has quit the board of directors of one of the companies he was involved with, but he hasn’t quit his main job with Riken. Yes, this looks like bad news and it probably is, but it’s not yet 100% confirmation that his project had failed.
I agree.
Replicel’s treatment involves non-induced cells so it’s not going to work. We already saw that non-induced cells don’t work with Intercytex and Aderans. Replicel is wasting everybody’s time and they should have donated the money they spent on their non-induced cell treatment to charity instead of funding these doomed studies.
Cells must be induced in order to grow hair. How many times must these researchers be told this?
This is an interesting topic and I need to learn from you guys.