Noob here. Trying to understand the basics of the ICX effort

Stem cell; cell based hair therapy
1

Hey. I’m a noob. Been reading old posts. I’m trying to get a handle on the ICX-TRC deal and what it really means to my hair loss future.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated:

– Timeframe:
Looks like 5-10 years at the earliest? I’m not a celebrity or a billionaire, just a regular guy who is willing to fly to England & spend the price of a new SUV to get some hair back. (Risk-wise I don’t wanna be a total guinea pig. But I’d be willing to be one of the first few thousand patients to get this stuff commercially.)

– Hair characteristics:
Is the new hair “original” in every sense? To me that would mean shaft thickness, color, curl, length, etc. The new hair would grow just as fast as the original stuff. It would look & feel the same, and it would literally grow out 1-2 feet long if it wasn’t cut.

– Permanence:
I understand that the ICX’d hairs have been influenced/reprogrammed by cells from the patient’s “donor zone.” Is this a one-shot deal for each new hair? Or will the ICX’d hairs need more constant “booster” treatments every few years for the rest of the patient’s lifetime just to stay functioning & adequately MPB-resistant? (I’m aware that it may take multiple ICX treatments to get the hair I want. I’m wondering about future maintenance once that point has already been reached.)

– Growth Direction:
Has this issue been truly solved? I’ve read things about the “scaffolding” technology, is that where this fits into HM work?

Thanks for any feedback/info/clarifications.

2

You’ll find some disagreement about answers to your questions. Here’s my take, though…,

» – Timeframe:
I’d expect 2-7 years for ANY type of availability. That is, in 2 years you might be able to get the procedure in a few outlets in England, but later on elsewhere in Europe. The cost will likely be less than a HT and will be quite non-invasive, almost like Botox.

» – Hair characteristics:
The new hair should be just like your regular old hair. No direction issues, no color issues, no “pluggy” look.

» – Permanence:
The results should theoretically be permanent, as the cells are cloned from the back of the head (which are resistant to DHT). I’m still slightly wondering if DHT sensitivity would be an issue for “regenerated” hairs, though. You could do touch-ups, however. This is something Intercytex hasn’t done yet and I wish they would – i.e., inject the same people 3-5 times over a series of months with DP cells.

» – Growth Direction:
Growth direction is a non-issue, imho.

3

» – Timeframe:
» I’d expect 2-7 years for ANY type of availability. That is, in 2 years you
» might be able to get the procedure in a few outlets in England, but later
» on elsewhere in Europe. The cost will likely be less than a HT and will be
» quite non-invasive, almost like Botox.

I’m going to disagree slightly with BB on both the time and the cost. I think it will be available earlier than 2 years from now in England. I’m going to give an optimistic prediction of 1 to 1.5 years for England and a few other scattered places in Europe. I think there is a good possibility they might be able to go right from the end of Phase II to limited commercial availability, either starting before, or concurrent with, Phase III. Definitely longer than 2 years for the USA and Canada, though. I think we’re looking at a wait of at least 3 years for clinics in the USA.

On cost, I’m going to say that the latest results may indicate cost might be higher than we’d initially expected. I realize that certain people “in the know” have said cost will be less than HT.

I think at first, given what we know now about yield, it might be about equal to or more expensive than HT, because for most people to get cosmetically acceptable hair, they’ll require multiple treatments, spaced out into different sessions, weeks or months apart. I think ICX-TRC will have the potential of giving great results, but that it’s sort of like sowing seeds in a field. The more seeds you sow, the thicker the crops grow, but you need to space the treatments out. That’s just my view. And I think that it’ll be hard for ICX to simply charge a “flat fee” for all this. They’ll probably have to charge a considerable amount for each session, since different people will require different numbers of sessions.

Just my guess…

»
» » – Hair characteristics:
» The new hair should be just like your regular old hair. No direction
» issues, no color issues, no “pluggy” look.

Agreed.

»
» » – Permanence:
» The results should theoretically be permanent, as the cells are cloned
» from the back of the head (which are resistant to DHT). I’m still slightly
» wondering if DHT sensitivity would be an issue for “regenerated” hairs,
» though. You could do touch-ups, however. This is something Intercytex
» hasn’t done yet and I wish they would – i.e., inject the same people 3-5
» times over a series of months with DP cells.

Agreed.

»
» » – Growth Direction:
» Growth direction is a non-issue, imho.

Agreed.

4

i think the cost is going to be an arm and a leg despite the many claims that it will be cheaper than an HT.

5

Thanks for the responses.

I really don’t care about the issues of which months/years it get released as much as I care about what ICX-TRC is ultimately capable of delivering.

The phrase “cosmetically-acceptable” concerns me a lot when I hear it so often. I hope those are comments/discussions about the appearance of the patient’s whole head rather than being about the new individual hairs themselves.

To my mind, if the hairs are “normal” and “terminal” then there wouldn’t be anything to discuss. The method of regeneration seems to imply some sort of recharging of the follicles. It begs the question of whether they’ll all come out “fully charged” or not. I don’t want hairs that end up only growing half as thick as my donor hairs are. I just want full-blown donor-sized hairs everywhere they inject. (And once they’re sprouted then I expect them to last, unassisted, as long as the donor hairs they were sourced from.)