Not true. There have been clinical studies showing the effectiveness of spironolactone as a hairloss treatment, but not FDA trials in the United States. I wish I remember the thread, but a few months ago one of the contributors here, after being asked the same question, posted a link to a controlled Italian study, showing the raw statistics and all, clearly illustrating that spironolactone is a stastically significant tool against hairloss. Perhaps the most convenient writeup on spironolactone can be found on Dr Lee's website.
You need to keep in mind that FDA trials cost money. The big pharma companies make most of their money right after they have developed a drug and then immediately put it on the market. For a legally fixed period of time, they can price the substance artificially higher than the actual production and development costs as a legally allowable way to make a return on the risk they took to experiment and develop the product.
After this fixed period of time expires, the exclusive patent and pricing arrangements end and then any and all other drug companies are then allowed to produce and sell the same substance under their own labels, i.e., other companies are then allowed to sell what we call "generic" versions. Since the "generic" companies did not have to shell out the capital and risk to develop the product, all they have to do is recoup production costs, and thus the market price falls to competitive levels with competitive pricing.
This is why Rogaine was so damned expensive ten years ago. Only until the patent period ended were generic Minoxidil producers allowed to sell their own brands of Minoxidil, which forced the brand name Rogaine prices back down into reality.
spironolactone has not, and probably will not ever undergo FDA trials. This is because spironolactone is not a new discovery, it is a very old substance and no pharma company has a patent on it. It is relatively very cheap, and as a mature product there is little room for added profit margin extensive enough to make it worth their while.
As to whether spironolactone or Finasteride are better, who knows. Finasteride certainly is more convenient and as such probably easier for them to market against Rogaine, which is produced by one of Merck's competitors. Also, as a new substance that Merck had a patent on, they found it worth their while to undergo clinical trials in the US as a hairloss agent because the profit potential was there.
