Replicel

http://www.stockhouse.com/news/newswire/2015/03/16/replicel-life-sciences-v-rp-hits-lucrative-bio-med-trifecta-with-innovative-tech

Looks like another attempt by Replicel to pay for someone to write “positive spin” for the investor community. The big spin here is this statement:

“Stem cells have also been touted as a remedy for hair loss, but the research is far from complete and this division of scientific study is heavily regulated, creating a bottleneck between tech development and the shelf.”

I would say that is a DIRECT response to the Sanford-Burnham development. They don’t have to blurt out the words, “Sanford-Burnham” for me to know this article was written specifically to make potential investors write off Sanford-Burnham as a long-shot, so whatever money Replicel can get from investors will keep flowing. And you don’t have to be Albert Einstein to know the article was written specifically to “respond” to Sanford-Burnham’s announcement.

The truth of the matter is, Sanford-Burnham WILL find someplace in the world which does not “heavily regulate” stem cells… and do their clinical trials there… just like Replicel was smart enough to do its own clinical trials in the Republic of Georgia, where regulations are minimal. Because the truth is, it’s not just stem cells which are highly regulated in the USA (that is true)… Even cell therapies that don’t use stem cells are highly regulated in the US (although stem cells are the most regulated cell therapy of all). So… wonder why Replicel had to go to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, way over in the Caucasus region, to do its first trials???

Replicel is very big on talk and trumpeting every little inch of ‘progress’ it makes, with what appear to be one paid article after another, but where are its results? The only results they’ve ever disclosed to the public have been horrible… something like 6% regrowth in the best cases, to my recollection.

So… what’s the big deal??? Will SOMEONE out there please tell me what’s the big deal with Replicel?

Next up: I predict Replicel will gradually move over into stem cells themselves.

It’s been this way for years. Replicel does a far better job of hyping itself & raising money than actually growing hair.

It seems more like a group of researchers trying to keep themselves employed than a real contender to do anything. IMO they were never even originally on track to do anything that Washenik’s operation wasn’t doing better.

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by cal[/postedby]
It’s been this way for years. Replicel does a far better job of hyping itself & raising money than actually growing hair.
[/quote]

+1000

Replicel treatment will Not work! mark my words guys, Replicel CEO is an amazing marketing guy but no amount of marketing will grow hair. Just keep your eyes on actual researchers like Cotsarelis and the likes. They are our only hope now. Companies like Histogen, Replicel etc just ran with one discovery they made and are just trying to get funding all the time - this will not cure hairloss!

You have to wonder what will work. Seven years ago Cots help create a company name Follica. They received 15 million dollars from investors. It is seven years later and what have they accomplished? Now it appears Cots has partner with another company to create another Rogaine. Sorry but not feeling the love!

Agree about Follica, but who ever thought they’d amount to anything in the first place? I certainly didn’t. They licensed a certain discovery from Dr. Cotsarelis, which connected wounding tissue to hair growth. But they never developed an effective therapy. All they had is this “idea” that wounding, plus something else, equals hair growth. Unfortunately they never discovered the “something else”. You can’t build a successful company on just a partial idea and an immature technology. The idea has to be complete and technology has to be mature.

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by superhl[/postedby]
You have to wonder what will work. Seven years ago Cots help create a company name Follica. They received 15 million dollars from investors. It is seven years later and what have they accomplished? Now it appears Cots has partner with another company to create another Rogaine. Sorry but not feeling the love![/quote]

I have never said Follica would work, I was skeptical from the very beginning. Having said that, there have been news that they are infact conducting a phase-II trial (probably in Israel), not much is known about what they are doing though.

The reason I’m a proponent of Cotsarelis is because he (and other scientists) are trying to understand the biological pathway that leads to hairloss/growth. Yes, they stumbled on the whole wounding thing by accident but since then PGD2 discovery shows that they are still working the biological pathway maze and trying to understand this process better. He has also said that they are trying to find a solution where they can use an off-the-shelf drug to achieve a treatment. The new venture is a result of that and how well that works we don’t know.

I can assure you that you will see more exciting news from the likes of Cotsarelis soon, these guys are always doing research with their graduate students. Two things are working against us though, first that the scientific research is a slow process, I know for us each day is a living hell BUT for researchers they must meticulously conduct experiments and record results, that takes months and months of time! Secondly, not every discovery they make is published immediately on the internet. Universities are very vigilant about securing Intellectual Property, that means getting a patent written up and filed. Even then they might hold off to publishing the result because they may want to conduct further experiments to test some new hypothesis that may lead to more Intellectual Property and so on.

I’ve pretty much given up on a cure and moved on with my life, but I know cure will be out one day and hanging out on these forums certainly isn’t going to make it happen any sooner!

Just keep in mind, Replicel has a very low chance of success. Actually, to me it reminds me 100% of Intercytex. Infact, Intercytex had very promising results in phase-I which led everyone to believe Phase-II would be stellar but we all know how that turned out. Replicel’s CEO is a great marketing guy, if I was starting a company, I would definitely hire him as a CEO but their technology isn’t really much more promising/revolutionary then what’s been tried before and failed to work.

Keep hope and live life! You are just thinking about your hair, these researchers are thinking about millions possibly billions of dollars in revenue - they have a much bigger incentive to get things to market as fast as possible! :wink:

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by roger_that[/postedby]
Agree about Follica, but who ever thought they’d amount to anything in the first place? I certainly didn’t. They licensed a certain discovery from Dr. Cotsarelis, which connected wounding tissue to hair growth. But they never developed an effective therapy. All they had is this “idea” that wounding, plus something else, equals hair growth. Unfortunately they never discovered the “something else”. You can’t build a successful company on just a partial idea and an immature technology. The idea has to be complete and technology has to be mature.[/quote]

At this point I am willing to try anything new whether it be Follica, Replicel, Histogen etc etc. Chances are that Follica alone will not do much but combining Follica with other treatments may do the trick for us.

Good luck with that. Do you understand that there is no Follica product or treatment?

It’s not just that they don’t have an approved treatment. It’s that they don’t even have a PROPOSED treatment.

If Follica were trialing a specific method, they’d announce what it was… Like saying “our protocol involves wounding the scalp by ABC and then applying Zinc Oxide…” or “Compund XYZ”.

But that’s not what they’re saying. If you look at their website, they have announced no specifics. But if they had specifics they would announce it, because that’s the only way to get more money. So it’s a catch 22.

All they have is a conceptual-stage idea from Dr. Cotsarelis, and if they’re testing this in Israel, I’d like to know exactly what they’re testing. Most likely they’re just wounding a lot of people’s scalps and applying a series of chemicals in a “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” approach. This wouldn’t be allowed in the US because the FDA wants to know EXACTLY what you’re going to do before you do it.

Follica is not operating by the normal rules of a biotech startup. The normal rules are, someone makes a discovery, you develop it into a clearly-defined technology, then you do clinical trials of a specific protocol. That’s not what Follica is doing. Follica is taking an idea and then trying to search for a working technology to implement the idea. Normally the way it goes is, first you finish the basic research, THEN you do clinical trials. Follica is actually not finished with the basic research phase yet.