They’re going into Phase 3 testing, which is the final round. It sounds promising, but expensive, as you would have to go into their clinic once a month for the treatment.
I read somewhere in the early stages of development the goal was to allow individuals to self medicate but I may be wrong. However, I will believe it when I experience it! We here are well aware of fake news an exaggerations!
I know a lot of people here put big faith in Follica, or at least there was a lot of enthusiasm about them on this site in the past. Remember the company has been around for about 10 years and hasn’t produced anything ground-breaking in that time.
Follica was an attempt to transform one of the discoveries of Dr. Costarelis into a commercial hair loss treatment. He discovered that making small injuries or lacerations to the skin of the scalp, can create what he calls an “embryonic window” of cellular conditions similar to those in the embryo, when hair follicles were developing, by releasing certain growth factors and/or activating stem cells. He reported that this could result in the growth of brand new hair follicles, and predicted that this effect would be greatly enhanced by both wounding the scalp skin and applying a certain topical drug at the same time.
So far, all we have from this company is some kind of device, which apparently keeps changing, because they released an earlier device at least 5 years ago and advertised it on their website with great fanfare. So, why did it take them so long to report hair growth results from their idea of a “wounding” device? And why do they seem to be re-launching the concept of wounding with a device all over again, now in late 2019?
They have reported that adding some drug will enhance the effect of the wounding - then, what is the drug? Is it an existing approved drug, or something new? Again, they have been silent about this issue - I suspect because they haven’t yet settled on a single product or drug to use at this point.
If they use an already approved drug, then the company basically amounts to a seller and manufacturer of scalp wounding devices, because the drug will belong to some other company. If Follica will only be adding value by selling a device, that’s not much for the company’s valuation, because seriously, anyone can use any microneedling device they want - you don’t need a special device from Follica. Microneedling is microneedling, there is nothing really special about the tiny wounds in the skin that Follica’s device can produce. There are MANY microneedling devices already on the market, and people have been microneedling their scalps with these devices for years now.
And if they do have their own drug, they would have announced it by now. We can assume they haven’t settled on a drug to use with the device until they announce it. Companies always publicly announce any drug they are developing which they intend to submit for clinical trials. They never wait like 5-10 years just to make an announcement like that. The fact that Follica hasn’t announced any specific drug leads me to believe they haven’t decided on one yet - which is not a very good sign.
If the drug is something truly new that has been discovered by Follica, they will need to go through a whole, extended application process for clinical trials and FDA approval for it. Since we haven’t heard them announce a specific drug product yet - just the skin-needling device - then I think that means they are not very far advanced in the development of their technique. If that is the case, then their main offering will take years to get to market.
And again, if the product they plan to use is instead an already existing, approved drug owned or licensed by some other company, then the only value added that Follica is bringing to the table is a micro-needling device. Which isn’t much of a breakthrough.
I expect the first new product to make it into the marketplace will be Breezula.
44 % would be impressive. But it’s actually the best responding group. The worst responding group achieved 29%. It is still good considering they are regrowing follicles de novo using topicals that are available on the market. But regrown hair are not all terminal. Some of them are intermediate.
Scientists pursuing hair cloning can only dream about such results so far. But what worries me about follica approach that it does not give consistent results. That means there are good responders and not so good responders.
Uhh… the japanese have already developed a technique to clone follicles that showed a greater rate of growth than any other method under current research by university or corporate investment which should tell you how unsuccessful others have been at attempting to match anything close to this level of progress.
They are still developing techniques how to grow hair on a dish in lab as yet.
Wrong. Theyre long passed that. The japanese are pushing for trials now. Youre not up on the latest I see.
I think Follica is an out-and-out scam. I think they’re using Minoxidil + microneedling.
I think they have created some fancy-looking device to microneedle with but there are already numerous devices you can use to microneedle just as well. The only real difference between Follica’s micro-needling device and some other micro-needling devices is that Follica’s will look hi-tech looking and it will be hyped with a slick advertising campaign & slick packaging to make it seem like you’re getting something special.
And then there’s the doctor visits to also make you feel like your getting something special. After all, when you use other microneedling devices you don’t get doctor visits so the bald people who are foolish and desperate will think Follica’s microneedling device must be special or else it wouldn’t include doctor visits as part of the microneedling. And you will pay for these needless doctor visits They’re turning microneedling + minoxidil into something that will make them $5,000 + per patient per year. What a scam!
The scam is designed to catch the fancy of people who need someone to hold their hand and walk them through the process of microneedling. Sorry to be harsh but that’s what it is. I’m sure it will come with lots of testimonials from people who could’ve gotten the same results with regular minoxidil and standard microneedling.
“pushing for trials”. I go to the toilet when I have to push it. You are either in trials or you not. And yes, they are in trials, because pre-clinical trials are also trials.
You realize you contradicted yourself. But I guess you go to the toilet on that too. lol
Sounds like they are using that great American business model,let’s put some crap on the market because people are dumb enough to give us their money.