I've read on here a few times that histogan may be best for maintenance. And Replicel May be best for regrowth, this accurate? The question is if you were wealthy enough could you get these treatments right now? By the actual company, in Japan where the trials are being done
Replicel, histogan...
- Thread starter Greybeer
- Start date
- Reaction score
- 1,332
Completely the other way around. What does maintenance mean for you? For me that would be a compound that keeps me ABOVE baseline levels for a long amount of time. At least 5 years.
Replicel is aiming for this. Even if that means having more injections. They take some hair follicles of the back of your head. Then they will culture a specific cell type and inject them on the top of your head and they hope that the hair follicles at the top will start to behave as the hair follicles taken from the back of your head. So they are trying to make your hair follicles androgen insensitive. It's a cell based therapy. If they really succeed and that is a BIG if, it could be huge. They are aiming for the sky basically with their hypothesis.
Histogen is a hair stimulating complex (growth factors basically). I don't believe that this will act as a maintenance treatment. They have data that shows that after some injections hair counts stay well above baseline after 1 year. However that obviously doesn't mean that it acts as a maintenance treatment. If you see studies where minoxidil solely was tested you see that the hair counts stay above baseline levels too. Actually a recent study shows that after 2 years of sole minoxidil usage the results eventually decrease to baseline levels. If we think like this we might say in a 1 year trial that minoxidil acts as a maintenance treatment too, but it doesn't really.
Basically no trial that is 1 year long can prove that a treatment can maintain hair is my opinion. Especially if you also understand this (the difference between healthy telogen hair follicles and non-healthy miniaturized hair follicles);
I actually envision that Histogen will work better in older subjects that show a increased telogen/anagen ratio not neccasarily related to Androgenetic Alopecia. Also for people who have Telogen Effluvium and especially many women that seem to suffer more from that condition. Actually Histogen is starting a trial for women too afaik. That is if they even get to the market though....
So Histogen doesn't do anything about the damage factor of Androgenetic Alopecia that we know (androgens, AR). While Replicel does try to cope with this problem.
If Replicel doesn't achieve their goal it could simply act as a hair stimulation factor too (stimulative factors released by the cells when injected). But in that scenario it will never reach the market in my opinion because of cost related issues. Something like Histogen would be far more realistic then because the process is less invasive, less time consuming and not as costly.
Replicel is aiming for this. Even if that means having more injections. They take some hair follicles of the back of your head. Then they will culture a specific cell type and inject them on the top of your head and they hope that the hair follicles at the top will start to behave as the hair follicles taken from the back of your head. So they are trying to make your hair follicles androgen insensitive. It's a cell based therapy. If they really succeed and that is a BIG if, it could be huge. They are aiming for the sky basically with their hypothesis.
Histogen is a hair stimulating complex (growth factors basically). I don't believe that this will act as a maintenance treatment. They have data that shows that after some injections hair counts stay well above baseline after 1 year. However that obviously doesn't mean that it acts as a maintenance treatment. If you see studies where minoxidil solely was tested you see that the hair counts stay above baseline levels too. Actually a recent study shows that after 2 years of sole minoxidil usage the results eventually decrease to baseline levels. If we think like this we might say in a 1 year trial that minoxidil acts as a maintenance treatment too, but it doesn't really.
Basically no trial that is 1 year long can prove that a treatment can maintain hair is my opinion. Especially if you also understand this (the difference between healthy telogen hair follicles and non-healthy miniaturized hair follicles);
I actually envision that Histogen will work better in older subjects that show a increased telogen/anagen ratio not neccasarily related to Androgenetic Alopecia. Also for people who have Telogen Effluvium and especially many women that seem to suffer more from that condition. Actually Histogen is starting a trial for women too afaik. That is if they even get to the market though....
So Histogen doesn't do anything about the damage factor of Androgenetic Alopecia that we know (androgens, AR). While Replicel does try to cope with this problem.
If Replicel doesn't achieve their goal it could simply act as a hair stimulation factor too (stimulative factors released by the cells when injected). But in that scenario it will never reach the market in my opinion because of cost related issues. Something like Histogen would be far more realistic then because the process is less invasive, less time consuming and not as costly.
Very interesting, I had it all mixed up. To the more experience veterans and frankly more educated on this matter are these treatments realistic with their outcomes? I've tried to contact both companies but haven't gotten any responses. I see a lot of people that believe in this in the research section, but a lot of people that doubt it in the hair transplant section! There is crazy money to be made and they'll never run out of patients so the incentive is all there ! Are these the real deal?
The first clinical trials are done and showed results correct, and these companies are continuing so they definitely weren't failures so they know they got something right at least
The first clinical trials are done and showed results correct, and these companies are continuing so they definitely weren't failures so they know they got something right at least
- Reaction score
- 1,332
Look here Greybeer; http://www.fdareview.org/approval_process.shtml.
As you can see many drugs fail to enter the market. The overwhelming majority actually does.
In terms of current pipeline treatments... I still have to see results that are exciting. Nobody has showed them in my eyes. The prospects are overall weak in my opinion. We can only hope for the best.
You are right though, there is much money to be made, but Androgenetic Alopecia is extremely complex. It seems so hard wired that correlations can be drawn to the aging process.
Don't make the mistake of not fighting this if you can, because you believe a cure is around the corner.