Hey peeps, I was just thinking... many (most, even?) drugs are CYP3A4 substrates, meaning they are broken down by the enzyme CYP3A4. Some drugs are CYP3A4 inhibitors. When you take a CYP3A4 inhibitor and a CYP3A4 substrate together, the substrate has an increased AUC (Area Under the Curve), meaning that your body gets more exposure to the drug even though the dose is the same.
So I'm thinking, there's a decent chance that setipiprant is broken down by CYP3A4. If so, we could increase its effectiveness by taking it with a CYP3A4 such as St John's Wort or piperine. I'm unsure if this would work for topicals as well as oral. If it's not broken down by CYP3A4, there's a chance it's broken down by another enzyme and that we could take an inhibitor of whatever that other enzyme is.
I'm not sure how to find out if it's a CYP3A4 (or some other CYP-) substrate. It's possible that nobody knows, not even Kythera, since nothing about it is mentioned in the studies. However, one of the exclusion items for the metabolic studies is that you are not taking a CYP inhibitor or inducer. That might be just for good practice though.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02381496
TL;DR: If seti is a CYP substrate, we could increase its effectiveness by taking it with a CYP inhibitor. This might be a way to get around the high cost, especially if the effective dose for male pattern baldness happens to be high, like 1000mg.
Disclaimer: Obviously don't try this if you are taking another CYP substrate.
So I'm thinking, there's a decent chance that setipiprant is broken down by CYP3A4. If so, we could increase its effectiveness by taking it with a CYP3A4 such as St John's Wort or piperine. I'm unsure if this would work for topicals as well as oral. If it's not broken down by CYP3A4, there's a chance it's broken down by another enzyme and that we could take an inhibitor of whatever that other enzyme is.
I'm not sure how to find out if it's a CYP3A4 (or some other CYP-) substrate. It's possible that nobody knows, not even Kythera, since nothing about it is mentioned in the studies. However, one of the exclusion items for the metabolic studies is that you are not taking a CYP inhibitor or inducer. That might be just for good practice though.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02381496
TL;DR: If seti is a CYP substrate, we could increase its effectiveness by taking it with a CYP inhibitor. This might be a way to get around the high cost, especially if the effective dose for male pattern baldness happens to be high, like 1000mg.
Disclaimer: Obviously don't try this if you are taking another CYP substrate.