Shiseido claims to have found a cure for baldness, available from 2018

[c_super2]

https://globalcosmeticsnews.com/asi...found-a-cure-for-baldness-available-from-2018



i thought this wasn't a cure? Did they have a breakthrough or something?

 

[resu]

They can claim whatever they want but until they show proper evidence I'll remain skeptical. A cure would have to turn even the baldest person back to NW1 otherwise it's a treatment.

 

[EvilLocks]

Fingers crossed this is true... But I'm prepared to be dissapointed, yet again. I wish there was a cure NOW though, even 3 years seems too long of a wait.

 

[Swoop]

As far as I know their treatment is more centered around maintenance/prevention of Androgenetic Alopecia. A full blown out cure (reversal) is a joke though, not going to happen.

Replicel mentioned this yesterday;

Thank you for your question. Our animal models showed both happening and we have designed our phase 2 trial to include biopsies from some of the subjects so we can look beneath the skin to analyze how the cells react to dormant hair follicles and if new follicles are created. We anticipate starting our phase 2 trial before the end of this year.

 

[benjt]

A full blown out cure (reversal) is a joke though, not going to happen.

Why? Their research strongly suggested that this is a possibility.

Regarding the original news in the OP: The article might very well be based on the report on Japanese TV a couple of weeks ago which I had translated the key points of. In that video (also on YouTube), some Shiseido people stated that they plan for availability in 2018. Quite an optimistic guess, given that their own Phase 2 trials havent started yet as far as I know. But I still think that this is "the cure", as in full reversal of baldness. It might require multiple injection sessions, but in theory it should regenerate 100%.

 

[Swoop]

Why? Their research strongly suggested that this is a possibility.

Our current hypotheses is as follows:

1) Fibrotic tissue. This is variable between different people. Some have quite a lot, others very little. In general, fibrosis increases with the progression of Androgenetic Alopecia. We are proposing that our phase 2 clinical trial will be tested on people with thinning hair --not extensively bald -- so these people generally do not have a significant degree of fibrosis. The main objective of the study is to have the injected cells migrate to, integrate with, and enlarge the resident follicles. Fibrosis could be a challenge for the injected cells, however, the DSC cells do express some matrix metalloproteinases, albeit at a lower level compared to ordinary fibroblasts. We have observed in cell culture studies that the DSCs will migrate through collagen sheets in response to a chemoattraction gradient. The full answer will only be known when we examine the tissue biopsies from people in the phase 2 trials.

2) Androgen sensitive cells. Androgen sensitive cells will be present in the resident hair follicles of people suffering from Androgenetic Alopecia. However, the DSC cells injected are derived from follicles at the back of the scalp that are androgen insensitive. The objective is to introduce enough DSC cells to the follicle that the properties of the injected cells are dominant. Over time, as the resident androgen sensitive hair follicle cells become senescent/die off, we anticipate the DSC cells will become progressively more dominant. Recent evidence indicates that a subset of cells in the cup region are responsible for repopulating other HF cells including DP (Rahmani et al. Developmental Cell. 2014 Dec; 31: 543-58). In theory, the injected ‘androgen insensitive’ DSC cells can repopulate DS and DP with ‘androgen insensitive’ cells.

In addition, the healthy DSC cells express immunoregulatory factors and so should help to reduce any local inflammation which in turn should help reduce or stop further fibrosis. We published a paper on some of our work on DSC immunoregulation last year. (Wang et al. Hair follicle mesenchyme-associated PD-L1 regulates T-cell activation induced apoptosis: a potential mechanism of immune privilege. J Invest Dermatol. 2014 Mar;134(3):736-45).

3) New follicle formation. In principle, with new follicle formation, the issue of fibrosis around pre-existing follicles is not relevant. The injected DSC cells may directly interact with non-follicular epithelium to make new follicles. In such cases, as the DSC are immunoregulatory and not androgen sensitive, any new follicles would have the same properties. However, it is expected that this will NOT be the mechanism of treatment in the planned phase 2 trial. Due to the methodology employed using our injector device, and because we will be injecting people with thinning hair and not extensively bald people, it is simple migration of cells to resident follicles and their subsequent enlargement which is expected.

I dunno. I find the "migration" part odd. First of all do DSC cells really repopulate the dermal papilla in humans? Yes there is some evidence of it happening in mice, but perhaps this isn't the case in the human scalp?

Also let's assume they even find their way and migrate to the right place. What is going to happen with the current niche sitting there? I mean we are stuck with a miniaturized hair follicle, the niche is still there. It's just totally broken. The primary factor of senescent or cell cycle arrest ones is that they are very resistant to apoptosis..

They seem to indicate that new hair follicle formation isn't the proposed mechanism. However why do we need new follicle formation if their hypothesis is correct of injecting DSC cells which migrate to the right place and repopulate the DP niche with fresh androgen insensitive DP cells? This would fix much right?

But I think this isn't their primary hope of mechanism. As they also outlined in the movie you mention they say it won't work on "bald" people. I think they aim more for a (permanent hopefully) maintenance/slight regrowth treatment. It would be far more plausible of these cells to do their work in a healthy niche or sub-par healthy nice than a totally crushed full out blown miniaturized hair follicle. At least this is my opinion.

I think a full blown out cure goes a little further. However a semi-permanent or permanent maintenance treatment with some repair would be already a great achievement in my opinion. I hope for this. If it's a full blown out cure then that would be godly but I think that's a dream scenario. We'll see I guess.

 

[Emu]

At least they didn't say available in 5 years..lol

 

[Folliman]

All we need is before and after pictures.

 

[F2005]

I dunno. I find the "migration" part odd. First of all do DSC cells really repopulate the dermal papilla in humans? Yes there is some evidence of it happening in mice, but perhaps this isn't the case in the human scalp?

Also let's assume they even find their way and migrate to the right place. What is going to happen with the current niche sitting there? I mean we are stuck with a miniaturized hair follicle, the niche is still there. It's just totally broken. The primary factor of senescent or cell cycle arrest ones is that they are very resistant to apoptosis..

They seem to indicate that new hair follicle formation isn't the proposed mechanism. However why do we need new follicle formation if their hypothesis is correct of injecting DSC cells which migrate to the right place and repopulate the DP niche with fresh androgen insensitive DP cells? This would fix much right?

But I think this isn't their primary hope of mechanism. As they also outlined in the movie you mention they say it won't work on "bald" people. I think they aim more for a (permanent hopefully) maintenance/slight regrowth treatment. It would be far more plausible of these cells to do their work in a healthy niche or sub-par healthy nice than a totally crushed full out blown miniaturized hair follicle. At least this is my opinion.

I think a full blown out cure goes a little further. However a semi-permanent or permanent maintenance treatment with some repair would be already a great achievement in my opinion. I hope for this. If it's a full blown out cure then that would be godly but I think that's a dream scenario. We'll see I guess.

I read that although a bald scalp lacks cosmetically significant hair, it still contains a wealth of stem cells needed to grow hair. So all that these stem cells need is some kind of signal to activate them again. Maybe these dermal sheath cup cells can activate these dormant stem cells.

 

[DoctorHouse]

I think the article had a typo in it, it was supposed to say 2020. Every cure takes at least 5 years to develop when it is first discovered.

 

[Folliman]

Japanese laws allow them to skip phase III trials though. They are starting phase II before the end of 2015 which will have a duration of 2 years. So it will end somewhere in 2017. And, if it's successful, it will be available in 2018. The problem is they don't know if it will work or not. In theory it works, but they need to try it to know for sure. Fingers crossed!

 

[hellouser]

Japanese laws allow them to skip phase III trials though. They are starting phase II before the end of 2015 which will have a duration of 2 years. So it will end somewhere in 2017. And, if it's successful, it will be available in 2018. The problem is they don't know if it will work or not. In theory it works, but they need to try it to know for sure. Fingers crossed!

Wrong.

Japanese regulations allow conditional release DURING phase II trials.

 

[Folliman]

Thanks for the correction, good to know. I'm guessing the conditional release is based on safety?

 

[hellouser]

Thanks for the correction, good to know. I'm guessing the conditional release is based on safety?

Safety trials have already been done though, so not really.

 

[big_head]

If this is a treatment that needs to be done every XX months, are we looking at like 3k a year cost or like a $500 a year cost? Because if this is something that constantly needs to be done, it might make more sense to just save up for a hair TP for many people if it's going to be insanely expensive (which it sounds like it will be since it's injections). I'm not balding terribly bad atm but I would totally do the treatment if it was a reasonable price.

Either way, anything that claims within 3-5 years...is usually very disappointing.

 

[TheShining]

Either way, anything that claims within 3-5 years...is usually very disappointing.

With that logic our only hope is if researchers starts from scratch, finalize all trials, file all permissions and paperwork and market the cure in less than 3 years. Sounds a little tight IMO.

 

[Folliman]

I'd be happy if it's something you have to do once every 10 years though... Wouldn't be a cure, but it wouldn't be bad either. Not once a a year. Every 5 years would sound reasonable.

 

[resu]

A cure would mean no competition so they would get all the money.

 

[Folliman]

It also depends on the price. finasteride and dutasteride work for the majority of men. If it's too expensive many would prefer to just stay on DHT inhibitors. I am expecting the price to be between 10k and 20k. It'd be depressing if it's something like 70k... ouch!

 

[Armando Jose]

Cure is irreal in this century. It is better try to understand the hairloss process to make a treatment tthat stop the process, common baldness is a process, it also works as a preventive method. "Prevention better than cure"