Dr. Farjo joins Balding Blog as an author and gives update on ICX-TRC

Stem cell; cell based hair therapy
21

» »
» » What do you mean for “repeatable with ever-compounding progress.”?
» » We don’t know what are the effects of TRC in the long term, but I am
» not
» » very optimistic. I suspect that they will be short lived and you will
» need
» » more injections to keep the results, and you won’t be able to improve
» any
» » further.
» » But of course, we don’t know, as ICX is giving so little info.
» »
» » Minoxidil is oviously a big hassle, having to apply it twice a day. If
» the
» » effects of TRC were comparable to minox, and permanent, then it would be
» a
» » big plus, no doubt.
»
» SpanishDude, i think the difference between minoxidil and icx is that
» minoxidil is a drug, meaning that it will hit an upward limit like a
» ceiling, of biochemical effectiveness.
»
» But by contrast, icx is a medical procedure which doesn’t necessarily hit
» an upward limit like a pharmaceutical drug will.
»
» If all other factors are controlled, there is no real difference between
» the tissue receiving the first treatment of icx, and the tissue receiving
» the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. treatments.
»
» Unlike with a drug, the effectiveness of a biological/medical procedure is
» not curtailed by metabolisation rates of the drug, pharmacokinetics,
» toxicity, osmotic uptake, intercellular transport and channels,
» concentration, clearance rates, enzymatic destruction, etc.
»
» So with a drug you would expect to see a plateau of effectiveness, and you
» eventually hit a “brick wall” or “point of diminishing returns”.
»
» But a medical procedure can simply be done again and again, and you
» GENERALLY would expect to see that the results are cumulative. You don’t
» meet a point of diminishing returns, or at least, if you do, it happens
» much later than with a drug.

well, in theory everything is very cool, but look at what happened to ICX-PRO.
This method failed to close VLUs (venous leg ulcers). The objective was total closure of the wounds. But in Phase III, they found that PRO was not more effective than the conventional compression bandaging. If the effect was cummulative, then simply repeating the procedure would have closed the wound. But this doesn’t happen.
Also, we know that Vavelta high dosage is not better than Vavelta low dosage. And the published Vavelta photos are the typical photos from charlatans… very crappy.
Sorry but it seems that these celular therapies are not as solid, scalable, perfect, and geometric, as we all thought/hoped. :expressionless:

22

»
» well, in theory everything is very cool, but look at what happened to
» ICX-PRO.
» This method failed to close VLUs (venous leg ulcers). The objective was
» total closure of the wounds. But in Phase III, they found that PRO was not
» more effective than the conventional compression bandaging. If the effect
» was cummulative, then simply repeating the procedure would have closed the
» wound. But this doesn’t happen.
» Also, we know that Vavelta high dosage is not better than Vavelta low
» dosage. And the published Vavelta photos are the typical photos from
» charlatans… very crappy.
» Sorry but it seems that these celular therapies are not as solid,
» scalable, perfect, and geometric, as we all thought/hoped. :expressionless:

SD, i’m not necessarily arguing with your overall conclusion.

However, remember that ICX-PRO is not really comparable to ICT-TRC, because with PRO the tissue is in a very dynamic, changing state – venous leg ulcers that are healing change day-to-day, and there is a huge amount of cellular activity – fibroblast formation, deposition, chemicals, interferon, clotting factors, T cells, platelets, IgE and all kinds of immunoglobulins, cytokinins, cascadin reactions, etc. present in the skin and shifting constantly. It is probably the most changeable and dynamic state that skin can be in, and the biochemical state of the skin one day or week is not equivalent to the same patch of skin the next day or week… it is VERY active and varies tremendously.

I think this means that the substrate skin in an ICX-PRO setting has a definite course – a beginning, a middle, and an end. In each stage, it is very different in character and therefore one would expect that outcomes are different at each stage, too. What PRO can do at stage X, it might not necessarily be able to do at stage X + 10.

Whereas with the ICX-TRC, the skin is pretty much in the same biochemical state at the time of the first injections as in a second round, third round, etc. In effect, it is static and if the skin substrate is biochemically the same (or nearly the same), you would expect the outcome to be similar with each round of injections, leading to a cumulative overall effect.

I’m not saying i know this for sure, but it just makes sense to me…

23

You can’t get competition until there is a product released. Once one is released, competition will follow in time. Once again, the MOST important thing is to get a product that actually works released. Everything else will follow from there. Worrying about cost, competition, or whatever makes no difference.

24

» Let’s see… half my head is bald (very few hairs over 30 microns) so I
» need approximately 10,000 new hairs (average hair count for people with
» full head of hair is 20,000). Therefore, all I need is 55,555 injections
» at an 18% success ratio and I’m there! All I can say is how much $ for the
» injections and how much $ for the morphine??

problem is that it probably doesnt work for cueballs … it will be just another thin hair to a bit thicker hair solution probably

25

If it works on thinning hairs it’ll probably work on cueballs. MPB treatments all seem to reverse the process sort of a given amount regardless of where the hair started.

Look at the pattern -

If the hair started out terminal but thin, it’ll probably get thick again. If it started out vellus, it could get terminal. If it started out non-existent but recently balded, then a little vellus hair might come back. If it’s been bald for 10 years then it’s probably not gonna come back. This is a consistent & predictable result we’re seeing.

Any future MPB treatment that can be repeated to actually compound its gains (unlike anything existing now) would probably EVENTUALLY heal up the balded areas enough to restore the hair.

26

» If it works on thinning hairs it’ll probably work on cueballs. MPB
» treatments all seem to reverse the process sort of a given amount
» regardless of where the hair started.
»
»
» Look at the pattern -
»
» If the hair started out terminal but thin, it’ll probably get thick again.
» If it started out vellus, it could get terminal. If it started out
» non-existent but recently balded, then a little vellus hair might come
» back. If it’s been bald for 10 years then it’s probably not gonna come
» back. This is a consistent & predictable result we’re seeing.
»
»
» Any future MPB treatment that can be repeated to actually compound its
» gains (unlike anything existing now) would probably EVENTUALLY heal up the
» balded areas enough to restore the hair.

I dont agree. Heres why. If cueball hair was no different then thining hair, then cueballs would get some rogaine hair coverage. usualy though they do not get past vellus.

Vellus to terminal has some kind of a barrier built in the transition. This brings possibility that all that math above is just wrong. All in all its safe to say the math calculation is just a speculation. An optimistic speculation (it assumes things that we dont know).

27

I don’t see the contradiction in what I posted.

Hair mainly improves one “notch” with existing meds.

– Hairs that began as vellus might go to a thinned terminal. One notch of improvement.

– Hairs that started out non-existent (but existed more recently than some other bald areas) might become existing vellus hairs. These follicles won’t go to a thin terminal for the same reason that the existing vellus hairs won’t go to a very thick terminal - because that demands that the androgen damage be reversed two notches for that particular follicle.

– The areas that have been bald a long time don’t grow hairs again. This still makes perfect sense, because their notch of improvement only took them from “long-bald” condition to something more like “recently-bald.” It would require a second notch of impprovement for them to sprout anything again, unlike some other areas of the scalp that did not begin balding as early.

28

yeah but you have to admit that all this is just speculations. We dont rly know.

You assume, and if you make assumptions you assume stuff that you wish for was real. In that math the guy basicaly made optimistic assumptions. Loads of them (30 micron hair is fairly thin hair still, certainly full head of 30 micron hair would still look pretty thin most probably. repeated treatments may not yield much better results (although yeah i do believe they should), this may be for thinners only and cueballs may not benefit at all (due to some molecular changes in their scalp thats been bald for too long) ) All these optimistic assumptions make the math conclucions quite flawed.

We dont know if it will work for cueballs. it may but it well may not at all. There is a long list of treatments that do not work for cueballs no matter what.

Hair from a human head is normally between .04 and .25 milimeters, averaging normally .1 Thats 40 to 250 microns, averaging with 100 microns normaly. 30 is nothing. 30 is still peach fuzz

29

» »
» » well, in theory everything is very cool, but look at what happened to
» » ICX-PRO.
» » This method failed to close VLUs (venous leg ulcers). The objective was
» » total closure of the wounds. But in Phase III, they found that PRO was
» not
» » more effective than the conventional compression bandaging. If the
» effect
» » was cummulative, then simply repeating the procedure would have closed
» the
» » wound. But this doesn’t happen.
» » Also, we know that Vavelta high dosage is not better than Vavelta low
» » dosage. And the published Vavelta photos are the typical photos from
» » charlatans… very crappy.
» » Sorry but it seems that these celular therapies are not as solid,
» » scalable, perfect, and geometric, as we all thought/hoped. :expressionless:
»
»
» SD, i’m not necessarily arguing with your overall conclusion.
»
» However, remember that ICX-PRO is not really comparable to ICT-TRC,
» because with PRO the tissue is in a very dynamic, changing state – venous
» leg ulcers that are healing change day-to-day, and there is a huge amount
» of cellular activity – fibroblast formation, deposition, chemicals,
» interferon, clotting factors, T cells, platelets, IgE and all kinds of
» immunoglobulins, cytokinins, cascadin reactions, etc. present in the skin
» and shifting constantly. It is probably the most changeable and dynamic
» state that skin can be in, and the biochemical state of the skin one day or
» week is not equivalent to the same patch of skin the next day or week… it
» is VERY active and varies tremendously.
»
» I think this means that the substrate skin in an ICX-PRO setting has a
» definite course – a beginning, a middle, and an end. In each stage, it
» is very different in character and therefore one would expect that outcomes
» are different at each stage, too. What PRO can do at stage X, it might
» not necessarily be able to do at stage X + 10.
»
» Whereas with the ICX-TRC, the skin is pretty much in the same biochemical
» state at the time of the first injections as in a second round, third
» round, etc. In effect, it is static and if the skin substrate is
» biochemically the same (or nearly the same), you would expect the outcome
» to be similar with each round of injections, leading to a cumulative
» overall effect.
»
» I’m not saying i know this for sure, but it just makes sense to me…

okay, although I don’t have the technical knowledgement that you have, I think I understand what you mean about PRO. Maybe its not possible to apply PRO cummulatively on a VLU.
But I also suspect that TRC is not cummulative either. I think that there are certain “hot spots” in the scalp, where injections are effective into producing hairs. I think that after the first round of injections, most of these hot spots are used up, and if you inject another round, you won’t get more hairs. I think TRC is just rejuvenating old follicles that are still viable. Once these viable follicles are rejuvenated, the party is over.

Of course I don’t have biology knowledgements. My reasoning is much more primitive, but also simple and pragmatic. If TRC was really cummulative, and produced neogenesis of hairs, then we could say right now that TRC is a totally viable treatment, and they could sell it right now, and investors would be pouring money into it. And ICX would be pumping up trialists into the injection room for phase III. This is not happening at all.

Also, we know that Vavelta high dose is less efficient than Vavelta low dose. This was published in a ICX report, and is very discouraging. I guess this also happens to TRC. This is why the PhaseI (low dose) produced surprisingly good results (according to ICX), while Phase II (high dose) has been dissapointing.
Vavelta photos are a fiasco, with lots of photographic tricks. It seems that Isolagen was a fiasco, and Vavelta is also a fiasco. The baby foreskin cells (allogenic procedure) have not been the fountain of youth that we hoped for.

With all these facts, and seeing how ICX stocks are sinking in the mud, there is very little reason for optimism.

30

You assume, and if you make assumptions you assume stuff that you wish for was real.

It takes an equally large assumption to say that I’m wrong.

We dont know if it will work for cueballs. it may but it well may not at all. There is a long list of treatments that do not work for cueballs no matter what.

I disagree.

There is a long list of treatments that do not work for cueballs no matter what. And the way that these treatments succeed & fail, matches the exact scenario that I laid out.

Look, I’m not cheerleading the (probably failing) TRC project here.

I’m saying that in general, we operate with the idea that cueballs are way less fixable than non-cueballs just on principle. I find THAT to be a flawed assumption.

Long-ago-cueballed follicles would need to get to “second base” in terms of improvement just to see any kind of viable hairs. And none of the existing treatments have proven capable of doing that with follicles in ANY condition. But given that all the other stages of follicles are able to be reversed predictably as far as we’ve been able to do it so far, I see no reason to think that long term cueballing is irreversible. It’ll probably work IF we ever get a treatment capable of getting past first base on ANY hairs. (In terms of discussing future MPB improvements, I think it’s pretty much a built-in assumption that it has to go farther than first base for us to even call it real progress.)

31

» Cost only comes down when there’s competitive market. Who’s competing?

Cost can also some down with no competition because of supply and demand effects. Even in a monopoly, if new technological improvements allow for a product to be created at a lower cost, the price will come down as long as the increased demand compensates for the loss of profit per unit.

32

There will probably be a big initial high price, but in the long run any kind of HM will be as cheap as they can possibly make it.

Supply & demand & profit & market size principles dictate it. You’d have to believe that the makers of HM would want to deprive themselves of money just to take your hair away to beleive otherwise.