Cal, MPB, Debris, Benji & JTR

[MPB]

» My advice is to focus on existing solutions.
»
» I dont know how badly butchered you are. Try contacting Hairsite. Really
» consider body hair transplants or a hair system.
»

A lot of people shoot down this idea but depending on what kind of damage you have, specifically a bad strip scar, you can get somewhat decent coverage using BHT depending, of course, on the quality of your body hair. I did that for my strip scar an although it isn’t perfect, it did help to some extent. I hated feeling that bald skin and terrible “itching” that went with it. Hair systems? Again it is a replacement for a ball-cap for me since I don’t have the luxury of wearing one in the professional environment I work at. I know it can be a burden, but people have learned to adapt on more serious matters.

My take on Follica. The patent is out there. There are people right now trying all kinds of different applications mentioned in the patent. Odds are pretty soon someone will hit the mark. This should be enough incentive for Follica to get their arse in gear and get something to market pronto… before all these so called hair “junkies” steal their limelight. Black markets exist all over the place and since the Follica approach is relatively inexpensive to replicate, the guinea pigs will be out in full force. Hell maybe it will take 3-5 yrs for Follica to come to market, but I believe results will be substantiated from their protocol long before this.

[Amilcar]

» Travis: I say, fck it. Go and send your pics to Hairsite now. Start
» freaking doing something about your situation finaly!

I dont think so Debris, Travis should wait few more months to see what comes from Acell. If not for the hair growth that would be for the scar healing.

[Amilcar]

» And don’t forget Bosley has an exclusive option to negotiate an agreement
» with Intercytex at the end of Phase II (not sure when that is officially).
» If they don’t sign an agreement, that will say a lot about Intercytex.

Thats Right, Bosley is surely way better informed than us, and do have, for sure, behind the scences secret communication channels with Intercytex. Therefore they are in a unique position to judge the situation of Intercytex technology. In other words if Intercytex comes to resolve the Chinese maze of multiplying hair-inducing Dermal papillas they will know about it before anybody else and sign without delay.

[cal]

MPB is right about Folica’s future if it works.

People complaining about how Folica will have to do 10 years of trials - many of us are just more committed than that. What this method really requires is several hundred bucks, a mailing address, a credit card #, and a local dermatologist. That’s it.

Look at the cost, recovery, growout time, and relative benefit ratio next to any kind of conventional HT. Do you want your hair back or not? I do.

As for long term risks with an unapproved method, I agree it’s an issue.

But ask yourself whether any “legitimate” method from Folica will really be a guarantee of any improvment. They might spend 6 years approving the stuff, but they still won’t really know the decades-long risk much better than anyone does right now. The FDA won’t really make them find out, the FDA will just make the method carry a warning about unknown long-term risks. (Same with Finasteride, and I think that kind of hormone manipulation in young men has a hell of a lot more likelyhood of long term damage than Folica’s deal does.)

[debris]

I think you are right that we all will see pretty soon if the basic cheap follica works well or not.

Unfortunately so far, it looks like the coverage the ppl get is way far from anything that could help Travis.

There is still some chance that ppl will find some miracle drug combination. But It certainly is more likely that wounding will stop being hot topic in few monts from now on. The same way other promising things ended. Of course some ppl will keep doing it, but some ppl use ZIX as well, and it obviously does not mean that it would be any miracle cure.

We all know that it can be done. This is imho significant. The photo of the guy was pretty cool actually. I hope it was not fake or something stupid like “patient did not want to mention HT to his hot cancer female doctor”.

I think the hair looked weak and different enough to assume it really was not HT. This brings us to the fact that maybe after a lot of tries someone will find the combination that works.

All in all, if travis tried to do something for himself now, he surely would not get hurt. Home made folica procedure (if it ever will work) will work for him even if he already goes through some repaair job in the mean time.

And if the home made tests fail, he can at least benefit from the fact he did not waste another 5 years doing nothing.

Really Travis, how bad your situation is?

[cal]

Well, like I’ve said before, I see no automatic reason to assume that any early/simple Folica method will produce mediocre results.

The previous HM schemes have been mechanically doing something to every single follicle. Either literally working on every follicle individually, or else something pretty close to that situation using TONS of injections. No wonder they had inconsistent growth. It’s like trying to plant grass in your backyard one seed at a time.

With Folica, either the drugs and wounding is enough to cause the growth or it isn’t. I see no reason to assume that there will be a major hit or miss result from follicle to follicle. Especially if the drugs are taken interally.

I suspect that either the Folica hairs will all come back strong, or they’ll all come back weak. And even if they’re weak, several passes may totally fix that.

[Amilcar]

Morality of the story : we will be fixed about Follica and Acell in 6 months at max.

[TAGOHL]

» My opinion is, yes it will need trials. Reasons are:

They may go through trials, but not for the goofy reasons you mention.

» a) FDA will want the trial money

What ‘trial money’?

» c) Folica will use more then just aproved drugs

Follica has stated publicly that they are using ALREADY approved drugs. Developing brand new drugs for this is retarded.

» d) Investors will want a procedure that is exclusive and hard to copy
» without being easily prosecuted by law

EGF inhibitors are already on the market, as are dermabrasion tehcniques.

» f) The follica estimate of 3 years to IND suggests

No, the article’s estimate. In fact, the person who wrote the article is confused. INDs come before trials, not after.

» g) Its logical. how many untrialed procedures or
» drugs are being done by doctors?

Are you kidding? Drugs are used all the time by docs for conditions unrelated to what they were approved for. It’s called off-label use.

[debris]

» » My opinion is, yes it will need trials. Reasons are:
»
» They may go through trials, but not for the goofy reasons you mention.
»
» » a) FDA will want the trial money
»
» What ‘trial money’?

You think they do it for free? Come on. you must have already heard of it Its called capitalism. By the same means us federal reserve bank makes money and is far from us, or federal. It’s privately held and their goal is to make money. FDA is no diferent.

»
» » c) Folica will use more then just aproved drugs
»
» Follica has stated publicly that they are using ALREADY approved drugs.
» Developing brand new drugs for this is retarded.
»

Yes they have. Thats good for patients, bad for investors. Investors rule patients.

» » d) Investors will want a procedure that is exclusive and hard to copy
» » without being easily prosecuted by law
»
» EGF inhibitors are already on the market, as are dermabrasion tehcniques.
»

This does not mean that follica will just start doing dermabrasion + EGF inhibition.

1. They’d be fools if they did study that shows this works, anyone could copy it and start doing it and they could not prevent them from doing so, dr’s are doing dermabrasion and other pharmas are selling EGF inhibitors. Realisticaly, Where’s follicas money in here? They won’t do anything that does not give them monopoly on the procedure. Thats certain. No investor will fund anything that wont include their very own drugs. No investor will fund research on something that other pharmas manufacture and sell and that docs would use off label. Why? Because there is no money in it for the investor.

2. it will not be so simple imho, that means, this will not work miracles so they will try harder, but here I may be wrong. All in all point 1) is relevant.

» » f) The follica estimate of 3 years to IND suggests
»
» No, the article’s estimate. In fact, the person who wrote the article is
» confused. INDs come before trials, not after.
»

Yes, IND is to start trials. What is so weird on it? If their phase of development is discovery, 3 years for IND so they could start trials sounds perfectly reasonable. And all evidence suggests that they are really just in that discovery phase.

» » g) Its logical. how many untrialed procedures or
» » drugs are being done by doctors?
»
» Are you kidding? Drugs are used all the time by docs for conditions
» unrelated to what they were approved for. It’s called off-label use.

I’m aware of of label uses, but its not primary way how pharmas do business and make money. If you want to be serious and get your product to get to many patients you need trials.

Also Off label would mean, that the drug would be being manufactured & sold by some other pharma, so some other pharma would be making money on it, not follica. Its much harder for them to prevent drs from doing dermabrasion, then to develop and exclusively manufacture a precisely phased drug coctail that is needed for the procedure and that they only have license to manufacture & sell.

==================================================================

Its either the guys who do wounding + WNT / EGF experiments will succeed soon (and so far they haven’t provided any pics so its safe to assume it somehow works, but not too great) or waiting for follica will be pretty long.

The only real immediate hope is that someone on some of the hl forums will try the EGF inhibition + wounding and it will just work miracles.

==================================================================

[rev]

» » » a) FDA will want the trial money
» »
» » What ‘trial money’?
»
» You think they do it for free? Come on. you must have already heard of it
» Its called capitalism. By the same means us federal reserve bank makes
» money and is far from us, or federal. It’s privately held and their goal is
» to make money. FDA is no diferent.

I call BULLSHTT on that comment. Application fees are one thing, but the FDA + profit models = a major conflict of interest to public health / lawsuit. Moreso, the FDA is not privately held. It’s an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services.

I think your comments overstepped your chronic pessimism this time (I didn’t think it was possible, but here we are). You cut into us for speculating the Follica concept (fair enough), but you’re doing the same with the FDA. That goes beyond speculation; that’s hypocrisy.

.

[debris]

rev: I’m not a lawyer and definately do not know much about american government so you may be right, though it would be a bit non american if there was an agency who’se purpose was not to make money. Though as I said you may be right so I assume you are.

[debris]

So I have tried to find out the fee amount that goes to FDA and although I’ve found that the fees do exist (what a surprise!! I do not think any of you seriously thought they do it for free, did you? ), I was not able to find the fee amount.

What I was able to dig up is the total yearly drug application fee revenues. They are quite high (around $455,000,000.00 in 2007) though its not so high as I would have expected. So it may be true that financially FDA is not too interested in a single trial. And that point can be removed.

[TAGOHL]

»» What ‘trial money’?
»
» You think they do it for free?

Aside from processing fees, this isn’t pay-for-approval.

» Yes they have. Thats good for patients, bad for investors. Investors rule
» patients.

Huh? It’s great for investors. New drugs cost a FORTUNE and many YEARS of time. What investor wants to pay and wait for all that?

» This does not mean that follica will just start doing dermabrasion + EGF
» inhibition.

Did you read the patent? Why am I arguing with a clueless dork? They patented a procedure which includes dermabrasion + EGF inhibitors, and that’s clearly what they are going to use. It’s what produces the hair growth. What Follica HASN’T specified in full detail (it’s ambiguous in the patent) are things like depth and size of abrasion, length of drug application, additional drugs like minox, etc.

» 1) They’d be fools if they did study that shows this works, anyone could
» copy it and start doing it and they could not prevent them from doing so,

Do you know what a patent is, son? I am sure they did their homework before investing millions of dollars in this. Their procedure will be protected. If someone wants to get creative and try to steal it, that will be for the courts to handle.

» dr’s are doing dermabrasion and other pharmas are selling EGF inhibitors.

Which is the point – Follica is not going to create new drugs for this.

» Yes, IND is to start trials. What is so weird on it?

WTF? Um, because they are starting human trials around now, BEFORE the IND?

Follica just received a round of funding for the purpose of human trials, and they stated they are soon starting those trials. They stated they are using already approved drugs, too. Why don’t you get a clue?

» I’m aware of of label uses, but its not primary way how pharmas do
» business and make money.

They make significant amount of money from off-label use of drugs. A while back, I posted an article about this.

» Also Off label would mean, that the drug would be being manufactured &
» sold by some other pharma, so some other pharma would be making money on
» it, not follica.

Follica does not make drugs. Follica will not be marketing drugs. I am sure that the cost of the drugs (plus any mark-ups) will be factored into to the cost of the procedure. BTW, pharmacies don’t make drugs, but they make money selling them.

[debris]

I think I’d repeat my point.

The only way you could persuade me that it is not going to happen my way is that you'd show me a clear way how FOLLICA and their investors and no one else could make money from dermabrasion + offlabel use of already existing drug and how they could prevent others from stealing this money off of them and performing the procedure themselves. I think this is the major concern. Patenting a procedure is not enough, anyone can start claiming well I just did dermabrassion, patient did not tell me he's on EGF inhibitors!! For these quite obvious reasons, patent for a procedure like that is practically not enforcable by law. Whether if your procedure involves a drug that only you can license anyone to manufacture, you are much better off. If someone starts manufacturing it and selling it without the license, customs could identify and get him in no time. And if you sue them, you are very likely to easily win.

Procedure is hard to control, you hardly can count how many of these were performed. You just dunno, alll you know for sure is that significant amount of money goes to someone else because he does it himself. Its easy to find excuses and hard to convince anyone that he actually performed the procedure. They could claim anything, even stupid excuses that it just grew on its own would probably be pretty hard to dismiss.

Whether if you have your little beautiful proprietary molecule, then no one can manufacture it for medical purposes without a license, you know how many doses were manufactured and that pretty much translates to the amount of procedures performed. You can control the price of it through your licensing fees. You have great control, and easy ways how to prevent anyone from stealing from you.

Completely different topic is that the patent they issued is probably well written. I seriously doubt that it will be just straightforward EGF inhibition + dermabrasion. Though this is another possible reason to go with their own drug, its not so important as the investors reason.

BTW Anyone already found a potent and easily obtainable EGF inhibitor so we could try it ourselves? If that does not work, then its proved that they will research their own drug coctail. This means we should know if I was wrong in quite short time.

[Sceptic]

» They
» patented a procedure which includes dermabrasion + EGF inhibitors, and
» that’s clearly what they are going to use. It’s what produces the hair
» growth. What Follica HASN’T specified in full detail (it’s ambiguous in the
» patent) are things like depth and size of abrasion, length of drug
» application, additional drugs like minox, etc.

IMHO, if follica is basically dermabrasion + EGF inhibitors, then it will be a joke, I hope there is something more, but I doubt it; not to mention that playing with growth factors is very dangerous if you don’t know very well what you are doing.

[debris]

» » They
» » patented a procedure which includes dermabrasion + EGF inhibitors, and
» » that’s clearly what they are going to use. It’s what produces the hair
» » growth. What Follica HASN’T specified in full detail (it’s ambiguous in
» the
» » patent) are things like depth and size of abrasion, length of drug
» » application, additional drugs like minox, etc.
»
» IMHO, if follica is basically dermabrasion + EGF inhibitors, then it will
» be a joke, I hope there is something more, but I doubt it; not to mention
» that playing with growth factors is very dangerous if you don’t know very
» well what you are doing.

I think you are right but I don’t agree with you I certainly hope it was just derma + EGF.

[Sceptic]

» I certainly hope it
» was just derma + EGF.

me too, I’d love to be proved wrong, but I think the key to hair growth is unknown at this time. I remember when Waseda was talking about growth factors some years ago, the man did his research, I hope he is well, I liked him, from then I still have a list about growth factors and their effects on hair, for example :

" both fibroblast growth factor (FGF) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) inhibit growth of the hair and hair follicle. Fibroblast growth factor type 5 (FGF5) is an especially potent inhibitor. Receptors for these ligands were found by immunohistochemical methods on papilla cells, matrix cells and stem sells in the bulge region of the hair follicle In a recent in vivo, 3-month trial conducted in Europe, a popular lipido-sterol extract of S repens (Permixon.) was found to inhibit 5a-reductase, decrease epidermal growth factor, and reduce DHT. These changes, found particularly evident in the periurethral region, have been observed in previous studies and resemble the effects of finasteride. Researchers observed that the preferential reduction of DHT and epidermal growth factor content in this tissue may explain the clinical improvement of obstructive BPH symptoms."

Two posts frow waseda I keep :

1 )
VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) (aka: VPF: (vascular permeability >factor))
KGF (keratinocyte growth factor)
FGF (fibroblast growth factor)
EGF (epidermal growth factor)
TGF (transforming growth factor)
IGF (insulin-like growth factor)
HGF/SF (hepatocyte growth factor/scatter factor)
PDGF (platelet-derived growth factor)
There they are, in order of significance (as far as I can tell). VEGF appears to be the most important growth factor.

2 ) My theory is many growth factors are needed for re-generation of hair follicles. One growth factor is not enough. We need more.
minox—VEGF, HGF inducer.
Zn++ ion—IGF-1 inducer.
Growing Shot S—aFGF inducer.
Procyainidins in Morehairin—PKC ( Protein kinase C inhibitor ) inhibitors.
Souhakuhi extract—unknown yet.
perilla leaf extract—TNF alpha, mast cell degranulation inhibitor
bayberry extract—DHT inhibitor
spiro solution—anti-androgen

[MPB]

» » I certainly hope it
» » was just derma + EGF.
»
» me too, I’d love to be proved wrong, but I think the key to hair growth is
» unknown at this time. I remember when Waseda was talking about growth
» factors some years ago, the man did his research, I hope he is well, I
» liked him, from then I still have a list about growth factors and their
» effects on hair, for example :
»
» " both fibroblast growth factor (FGF) and epidermal growth factor (EGF)
» inhibit growth of the hair and hair follicle. Fibroblast growth factor type
» 5 (FGF5) is an especially potent inhibitor. Receptors for these ligands
» were found by immunohistochemical methods on papilla cells, matrix cells
» and stem sells in the bulge region of the hair follicle In a recent in
» vivo, 3-month trial conducted in Europe, a popular lipido-sterol extract of
» S repens (Permixon.) was found to inhibit 5a-reductase, decrease epidermal
» growth factor, and reduce DHT. These changes, found particularly evident in
» the periurethral region, have been observed in previous studies and
» resemble the effects of finasteride. Researchers observed that the
» preferential reduction of DHT and epidermal growth factor content in this
» tissue may explain the clinical improvement of obstructive BPH symptoms."
»

So I guess your point is- is that Follica is spending all this time, effort and money to basically recreate Propecia.

[Sceptic]

» So I guess your point is- is that Follica is spending all this time,
» effort and money to basically recreate Propecia.

Sorry, I don’t understand, what’s your point ?

[Travis_Bickle]

»
» Your situation can’t be any worse then my own.
Wonna bet ?

Get a good concealer and
» get on with your life.

Camouflage developed by the US military couldn’t hide my damage let alone spray on hair.

I would be curious to know who butchered you, as I
» am possibly seeking to remedy my current situation as best I can and
» definitely don’t want to make the mistake of choosing the wrong clinic.

I am sorry but I cannot tell you the name of the strip surgeon who butchered me as that will leave me wide open to legal prosecution.Ironic isn’t it? I couldn’t do anything to him but he can sue me.

» Your rant on the ht board was right on. 95% of hairtransplants look like
» crap and are easily picked out of a crowd. The see through hair is a dead
» give away along with patients that were seriously disfigured.

Yes but thousands still line up thinking that a HTP will work for them.I think when people lose their hair they also lose common sense.

» email me at htrepair1@yahoo.com