Category: Hair Cloning

How would Hair Multiplication work? Not technology wise, but market placement wise. How much would it cost? I’m pretty sure they could charge whatever they want and it wouldn’t change the mind of too many potential customers you would think. So really it’s a question of of their ethical and moral standpoint I guess, but if you could give some sort of estimate I would really appreciate it. Also what would happen to the drugs market, I know drugs like Finasteride, Dutasteride and Minoxidil are used for other reasons but I have reason to believe that most of their money is made in the Hair loss market, I’m aware that most people who are in the early stages of MPB would continue to use these as you can still get a good 5+ years out of it, but people worried about side-effects and people who are on high income will just forgo the drugs and go straight into the HM procedure. Finally I wonder about hair transplant doctors such as yourselves, I know that they will be useful in performing the HM procedures but from the procedures described by Intercytex these would be of much less precision and skill, would this mean that HT doctors would have to take a huge wage fall? I think most of the money would be paid to the company which take the hair follicles and multiply them, so what is your opinion on this.

On another note, I asked a question recently about why hair follicles can’t be preserved and I now understand that they can not be preserved, so how is this going to work? they plan to take your hair and multiply and this process would take a few weeks, but surely all the hair would just die in that time?

I do not know the answers to your questions. I would assume that there will be training in whatever the technology evolves into, but as it is not final yet, there is no way to tell. Usually drug companies come out with the product and the process and doctors become qualified to use it.

Take Botox, for example… the doctor buys it from the manufacturer and then charges the patient for the medicine used and the service he provides with its use. I would imagine the same would occur with hair multiplication.

This is a continuation to last week’s post, Intercytex Announces ICX-TRC Phase 2 Results by Dr. Bessam Farjo. He had included these images with the text of his original article, but I didn’t have captions for them so I held them back until they could be presented in the proper context. The captions and images were provided by Dr. Farjo. Click to enlarge:

–

Baseline MacroPhoto of tattooed study area 1 week after injections

 

MacroPhoto of tattooed study area prior to cell injections

 

Preparing multiplied cells in solution in GMP facility

–

Learn more about the author of this article, Dr. Bessam Farjo, on his BaldingBlog profile or at his website.

Release from Intercytex: PDF file

They still believe that this can be a marketable product, the question as an expert what do you make of this data? It does say that more data will be released later this year i’m presuming photos.

Our newest author on BaldingBlog, Dr. Bessam Farjo, is intimately familiar with Intercytex. The following response comes from him:

—

Response by: Dr Bessam Farjo United Kingdom

We finished following up the last volunteer of Phase II of the trial about 6 weeks ago, and the 1st set of analysis data have just been released. This trial was designed to examine the effect of different dermal papilla (the hair producing cells in the root) delivery techniques and methods to ensure that the epidermal (superficial skin layer) cells were in the correct state to respond to the signals and produce new hairs.

To recap, the point of the trial is to see if it is possible to create a limitless supply of donor hair and deliver results with very minimum of surgery. In each subject, an initial surgical harvest of around 100 hairs roots was performed, dermal papilla cells separated and then put in a proprietary culture medium for 8 weeks. In this medium the cells multiply extensively producing millions of ‘cloned’ DP cells.

Each volunteer was injected 900 times with the suspension containing the lab-grown DP cells in a large area which was photographed at the end of the study. Volunteers were also injected in a smaller area, divided into two halves – counts were obtained by shaving and photographing the two small halves of this small area of the scalp, injecting them multiple times (either 1 injection of 50 µl or 50 injections of 1 µl) with living DP cell suspension and then applying a specialized image analysis system to provide a total hair count. In these small sections, all 19 subjects in the trial were treated using a range of injection and scalp pre-stimulation techniques; the first 6 subjects were injected without stimulation of the scalp. In the remaining 13 subjects the resident hair producing (epithelial) cells were stimulated at the time of delivery of the DP cells in one of the two treatment sites. 13 subjects completed the 48-week trial with 6 subjects lost to follow-up. Of the 13 subjects completing the trial the data showed that:

• 65% (11/17) of the treated sites in the non-stimulated group responded to the treatment by increasing numbers of hairs of all sizes
• 71% (12/17) of the treated sites in the non-stimulated group responded to the treatment by increasing numbers of hairs over 30 microns in diameter
• 78% (7/9) of the treated sites in the stimulated group responded to the treatment by increasing numbers of hairs of all sizes
• 100% (9/9) of the treated sites in the stimulated group responded to the treatment by increasing numbers of hairs over 30 micron in diameter
• The overall take rate (number of hairs produced per 100 injections) in the stimulated areas was
  • 40% (n=6) for hairs of all sizes
  • 18% (n=6) for hairs over 30 microns in diameter

The larger (900 injection) area photographs have not yet been analysed. As a reference, hairs under 30 microns in diameter that grow less than 1 cm in length are vellus baby-like hairs, while terminal adult-like hairs are more than 30 microns in diameter and grow more than 1cm in length.

The data strongly suggests that new hair production is improved by pre-stimulation of the scalp. This is essentially a technique to cause a minor injury to the skin surface, leading to an interaction between the injected cells and the resident hair producing cells. The role of an injury or skin wound in hair growth in mice had first been established a year or two ago by Cotsarelis and his team.

From a clinical point of view, what we have learned is that when such a technique becomes an available commercial treatment, it can be a rapid and pain free procedure. Obviously local anesthetic will be used, but certainly 1000 injections can be performed in under an hour with post op pain almost non existent and scabbing very minimal.

Further studies are of course planned, but one exciting area that may point to the way of the future is the development of the so-called Proto-Hairs. Still in the lab stage for now, animal multiplied dermal papilla cells are developing terminal hairs in the lab dish. Once this is duplicated reliably in the human model and proved to work in a human trial, it may provide another alternative to the concept of cell therapy for hair loss.

–

Learn more about the author of this article, Dr. Bessam Farjo, on his BaldingBlog profile or at his website.

Hi doc, I would like to know your opinion about aderans. They are conducing trials in NY, and they say that the results of the experiments will be available in the next 4 mounths. The trials will be concluded at the end of 2010. Do you think they possibly provide us their treatement by the end of the decade, as they promised?

Thank you, best wishes

It is difficult for me to answer your question, as I am not an insider with Aderans. Should we just take them at their word and look for more announcements in the months ahead? Like you, I’m waiting for the results of these trials to be announced. The following is from their website — “We anticipate that patients will have access to hair multiplication technology by the end of the decade, and will enjoy the convenience of same-day office visits, much like the most common cosmetic procedures.”

Aderans clearly has high hopes.

Dear Dr,

Thank you so much for the great website. I have two questions. Firstly, is there any chance that Propecia can lead to infertility in men?

Secondly, if the ‘theory’ behind hair multiplication is sound is there a type of ‘gold rush’ to get this to the market place? I only ever hear about aderans and intercytex. Surely, there must be more companies looking for a cure. It seems that intercytex has had ‘relatively’ good results so far in its trial for hair multiplication. Do you believe we will ever see a complete cure for baldness? Not just stopping people going bald but allowing extensively bald people to regrow hair. For example bruce willis regaining a full head of hair.

I do think there will be a cure for baldness, just as I think there will be a cure for cancer and a cure for a rash of other diseases and ailments. When that will be is anyone’s guess, but science progresses all the time. It won’t be within the next few years, but we can all hope for the best. I have no way of knowing if it’ll help Bruce Willis regrow a full mane of hair, though. We could speculate all day, but it is just a pipe dream at this point. Hair loss isn’t a life threatening disease, so you’re not seeing yellow plastic bracelets and pink ribbon stickers everywhere with people showing their desire to help fight against balding.

Aderans is a huge Japanese company with significant funding, and Intercytex is also well funded, so the market has space, but it isn’t just something any company can rush into without a whole lot of money backing them up unless they want to just fizzle out. I’d guess that many companies will wait until the technology is proven safe and effective (if it ever is) and take it from there. I mean, just look at the rush of products that came out containing minoxidil once that was available as a generic. There is just not much that is worth my time to evaluate at this stage. When it gets to the level where the FDA has to review it for clinical testing, then there will be a track record of science that got it there and as this will always be public information, we can assess the technology at that time.

Paid advertisements (not an endorsement):

Dear Dr. Rassman, Just heard an ad on the radio and checked out the website. h-ari.com

I haven’t seen this technique before nor saw it on your blog. I was just curious if you knew about this or heard any promise in this field. Thank You.

This is all promise at this time. The company hopes that their treatment methodologies will eventually lead the area of hair multiplication, but as of this time, it is not available (except as an experimental subject). The text of the site requires considerable reading for the consumer to determine that this is an experimental technique, not something available on the market today.

In around the year 2000, they made claims that this technology would be available in 3-5 years. Now it is another 3+ years, which seems to be a moving target further from our reach.

Paid advertisements (not an endorsement):