Replicel, Histogen and Latisse updates for October

The top two posts in the below blog talk about updates from Replicel, Histogen and Latisse. I am most excited about Latisse.

I am least excited about Latisse. Latisse has never been anything remotely approaching a solution to MPB. It’s a chemical which has a very short half-life, so it degrades very quickly in the body, and has to be constantly reapplied to have even a minimal effect (like Rogaine, but even worse), PLUS if you look carefully, it has a lot of well-attested, undesirable side-effects and can screw up the function of your cranial nerves, tear ducts and your parasympathetic nervous system. It can cause blurry vision, and you have blue or green eyes, it can turn them permanently brown or black, in fact it has a strong likelihood of doing so if chronically absorbed. The side effects aren’t life-threatening, just really a nuisance. You need to apply A LOT of this stuff for it to have any visible effect on your hair, and the problem is that the more you apply, the more side-effects you get. Trust me, I’ve studied the pharmacokinetics of drugs like this.

You’re excited about this cr@p?? May I ask why?

I have to agree with roger. I experimented with a relatively low dose of topical latisse and experienced nasty side effects - swollen, painful eyelids, blurry vision etc… And saw no regrowth at all. I don’t think it has much potential at all.

Histogen has been a let down. The company seems to have made no progress in the past couple years. My guess, and as others have noted, would be that they are having trouble with money. And the only reason they would have trouble with money is if they’re having trouble with the efficacy of their treatment. Good results would easily attract a lot of investor money. And Histogen would be screaming their results from the rooftop - which hasn’t happened. It’s a bummer, but unless they come forward with something soon, i think they’re finished.

Replicel has potential. Hopefully they’ve incorporated some of the recent advances research has made in maintaining trichogenicity of cell lines into their process. If so, then perhaps they’ll have something. They’re starting phase II very soon, so we should know something more in 12 months or so.

Hi roger_that, what I meant is that of these three presentations in October, I am most excited about Latisse because I doubt that the Histogen and Replicel updates will have anything new that has not already been said.

Of course in the long run, cell based treatments are going to be the thing and Latisse will be useless in comparison.

I am excited to see if Latisse will be better than Minoxidil, and if side effects will be minimal since the product will not be used near the eye region.

i.e., I am relatively excited for the month of October…not expecting Latisse to be better than Minoxidil, but hope to be surprised.

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by Mr. Z[/postedby]
Histogen has been a let down. The company seems to have made no progress in the past couple years. My guess, and as others have noted, would be that they are having trouble with money. And the only reason they would have trouble with money is if they’re having trouble with the efficacy of their treatment. Good results would easily attract a lot of investor money. And Histogen would be screaming their results from the rooftop - which hasn’t happened. It’s a bummer, but unless they come forward with something soon, i think they’re finished.
[/quote]

Histogen a let down?

Maybe not a full head of hair, but Histogen still sounds very promising to me, and maybe not too far away if you can get to Japan:

You guys have nailed it.

Latisse isn’t worth our attention.

Histogen probably still doesn’t have much efficacy or everyone would know about it by now.

Replicel always struck me as too much of a poor man’s Aderans. And given the company’s behavior a few years back, I just plain don’t trust them at this point.

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by cal[/postedby]
Histogen probably still doesn’t have much efficacy or everyone would know about it by now. [/quote]

Didn’t you watch the video in the link I posted?

OK, so Histogen isn’t saying it can give a full head of hair to a norwood 5, but it says one treatment resulted in much more regrowth than Rogaine or Propecia, and was equally effecting on men in their 50s as in men in their 20s.

Further, an additional treatment resulted in more improvement–so to a degree it’s additive.

And regrowth continued to improve for up to at least a year after treatment.

This is great news for those of us who have thinning hair–Histogen could very well restore enough density and hair shaft diameter to make a very meaningful cosmetic improvement.

It also says that it not only seems to improve existing hair quality but also changes vellus hairs into terminal hair.

And the best part is if the trials set to begin early in 2015 are successful, then commercialization in Asia is not far away (in the USA, commercialization will take longer because of the FDA).

I would hop a jet across the pacific in a heartbeat to have this procedure. Sounds to me there’s a chance it could possibly double the amount of hair on my head, and with larger diameter hair shafts. Overall improvement could turn the clock back 25 years for me.

And believe me, until you’ve actually lived with a serious level of hair loss as long as I have (long enough for my transplants to actually start to weaken and thin–and yeah like they tell everyone, they told me transplants last forever), you’d be glad for a meaningful improvement even if it’s not a full head of hair again.

I suspect that so many here have the all-or-nothing attitude about a given treatment–that is, either a treatment gives me all my hair back or its worthless–because they haven’t really been bald enough or bald long enough to appreciate anything less than a perfect head of hair.

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by cal[/postedby]
You guys have nailed it.

Latisse isn’t worth our attention.

Histogen probably still doesn’t have much efficacy or everyone would know about it by now.

Replicel always struck me as too much of a poor man’s Aderans. And given the company’s behavior a few years back, I just plain don’t trust them at this point.[/quote]

Histogen might turn out to be a surprise. It’s very encouraging to see them push ahead with a new trial
If they can manage to get some cosmetically acceptable regrowth and (what I think is more important) to
halt further hairloss without side effects, then this would be a great thing. Responder rate will also be
important…nobody will want to dump money on this if they only have a 50% response rate.

Agree with you about Replicel. David Hall did much damage to their reputation with the paid hyping nonsense.
And unfortunately, I just read another recent interview with him where he was throwing around the word cure,
and speaking in quite grandiose terms. So it seems, he’s not learned his lesson. Even with his stock sitting
in the crapper. Maybe they have something, but i’ll believe it when I see it. They’ve never shown the 1 yr
results from the phase I/II trial which they claimed they were going to. So, it makes you wonder what they have,
if anything? But then again, Sheisdo jumped in, so maybe it’s something???

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by cal[/postedby]
You guys have nailed it.

Latisse isn’t worth our attention.

Histogen probably still doesn’t have much efficacy or everyone would know about it by now.

Replicel always struck me as too much of a poor man’s Aderans. And given the company’s behavior a few years back, I just plain don’t trust them at this point.[/quote]

What are you talking about? I am excited about Histogen now after watching the video, seems like they are onto something that is effective.

I haven’t even watched the video to be honest.

I react this way because Histogen seemed to be in this same place years ago. Nothing anywhere near that impressive followed.

Finally we know the status of histogen’s phase 3 beginning and it’s early next year in Japan. Our 2 best chances- replicel and histogen in the same area. According to a recent press release from replicel saying that in japan’s new regenerative medicine laws allowing a product to enter market after phase 2 data comes in for evaluation of safety and efficacy. We could fly to Japan and get treatment from replicel and histogen product. Two different methods. These two companies have good track records of moving through trials without hold up, unlike aderans and their endless phase 2 and tinkering around not knowing what works and keeping people wondering. I think if we want a credible treatment for the near term (3 years or so) this is our only hope rather then a dr nigam.

Thanks for posting the video, the before and after pictures are impressive, what I am not impressed is the extremely small number of test subjects, didn’t she say only about 10 test subjects in one of the trials?

The histogen pic that shows temporal recession is amazing, this is very good news and doesn’t sound that far away (time wise).

Lasting results from only 1 injection; effective even for receding temples; all very good news, how come nobody seems excited?

I’m surprised Histogen looks this good. I’ll take a wait and see approach, but I see it so far as a positive. Then again, I would consider an overall increase of 25% density as a home run interim treatment. Based on the current study results, this remains entirely possible.

Propecia is effectively a cure for me, but I don’t use it due to the sides. Thus, I’ve endured 20 years of hair loss without any form of treatment. It’s been kind of nice, as I don’t really fuss about my hair. I comb it straight back in the morning, and head out to work. Girls still flirt with me throughout the day and check me out when I go out to lunch, so I really can’t complain too much about the ever thinning hair and the growing baldspot on the back of my head. :slight_smile: That said, I’d love to see an equivalent topical anti-androgen to Propecia without the sides.

I work in an office, and I’ve been dressing extremely well these last few months. I’m surprised at how different women treat me when I dress up for work. They’re all over me. For all the balding guys who want to increase their chick count, I recommend investing a couple of grand in clothes. You can get some really good sales on line at Macy’s. I scored on a 3-piece wool striped suit for $130 bucks that makes me look like a GQ model. With all these nice clothes, I almost don’t even need any hair.

In addition, I’ve dropped back down to my high-school weight, and I’ve learned that women dig thin guys with athletic builds. I’ve also started wearing glasses, and people say it makes me look about 40 IQ points smarter.

So some of you guys might want to try a good make-over. It might not cure all your problems, but you’ll be surprised how how differently people will treat you. A little effort will go a long ways.

Most of all, think positive. It makes the world a better place to live.

Hey JB, I agree this does look promising. Good to hear from you as I miss you and John The Revelator on the forum.

I have a few questions about Dr Naughton’s presentation.

3:32 minutes into the video she says that the baseline was 214 hairs, and that after one year there were 324 hairs. She calls this a “123%” increase. Is it just me, or do the maths not add up? If there had been a 123% increase they would have ended up with 477 hairs (not 324). I think it’s more like a 51% increase. Still impressive, but not as impressive as 123%.
2)
I wonder how relevant these percentages are anyway. I mean: If someone is almost completely bald and only has two hairs left on his head, a 50% increase would mean that he would end up with one additional hair - not exactly a “cure”… How relevant is the baseline?
3)
Why are they conducting the Phase III trials in Japan? Why not in the USA? (Were phase I and II trials conducted in Japan as well?) As far as I know, phase III trials can be quite short - does that mean this product may be on the market in Japan sometime next year? (And if so, how long would it take for it to be commercially available in the States or in Europe?)

I wonder whether they’re still aiming “to have a product on the market in Asia in 2015 and in the U.S. a year later”:

http://uk.askmen.com/entertainment/better_look_3800/3853_men-and-balding.html

Also, did they ever say what Histogen did to hair colour?

Hi all,

Ralphy I completely agree with you- it’s great to read/hear that JB is still around and posting and I do miss JTR’s posts as well. They both brought such good insight to the conversation.

JB:

great advice on all fronts, particularly on the positive thoughts. Like most of us who have been dealing with hair loss for many (many, many) years, it may be difficult to remain positive but the constant anxiety and fretting is not helpful at all.

A 25% improvement, from a cosmetic standpoint would be extremely welcomed to co-sign on Ahab’s point. Further, if the improvements are additive, to some measure, and long lasting, I would jump to asia to get it done as well.

Here’s to keeping the faith and sending positive energy out there for a successful 2015.

Kind regards,

Jonesing

In the presentation Dr. Naughton hinted a couple times that they need investors, any chance that their final trials may stall due to lack of funding?