Carmell Therapeutics Merger Finalization Update (09/12/2023)

As of September 12th, 2023, Carmell Therapeutics has finalized a merger with a regenerative medicine company called Axolotl Biologix. The company names it a “significant development for the future of regenerative medicine”. Axolotl Biologix is a company that conducts research in regenerative medicines to design and develop human amniotic membrane-based allograft products for soft tissue repair.

Original Article

A Pennsylvania-based biotech is seeking to reinvent one of the most discussed mainstream hair growth procedures, platelet rich plasma therapy.

Carmell Therapeutics Plasma-based Bioactive Material

It’s a thought that has crossed the minds of many people who have heard of, or received, PRP injections for hair growth – “can’t they make a version of PRP which would prevent the need to draw blood every time?” Well, wonder no more. Carmell Therapeutics has spent the last several years developing a technology dubbed PBM or plasma-based bioactive material. In essence, it’s an off-the-shelf form of PRP which can be applied to aesthetic and orthopedic therapeutic indications. Carmell’s end product is not synthetic and is actually sourced from human donors, making it an allogeneic form of PRP. The Technology section of Carmell’s website describes their PBM product in further detail and lists some of the safety measures which go into obtaining and processing the product.

PRP is one of the more enigmatic treatments which exists for hair growth. Some patients display impressive regrowth results, while others find it a pricey procedure with not much to show for. Carmell Therapeutics’ allogeneic PRP technology is based on proprietary science from Carnegie Mellon University. According to their website, Carmell has seven therapeutic targets in their pipeline, including bone fracture healing, spinal fusion, chronic wound healing, and androgenetic alopecia. The most advanced program in the pipeline is Tibia Fracture Healing which is listed at entering a phase 2 clinical trial in Q3 2023. 

Carmell Therapeutics Merger With Alpha Healthcare Acquisition Corp

Carmell Therapeutics (CTCX) recently completed a business merger to make their company publicly traded. On July 6, 2023, a document was filed with the SEC announcing the merger of Carmell Tx and Alpha Healthcare Acquisition Corp III.  Two slide images in this article are sourced from said document. Following the merger, Carmell will retain its name. The document contains a few lines of information regarding the company’s alopecia program. Namely, Carmell is currently working with key opinion leaders to finalize a preclinical trial protocol. Also within the document, Carmell highlighted an unaffiliated previously conducted study which bodes well for their product.

The above image displays data gathered from a peer-reviewed study conducted in 2018 which compared the hair growth effect of autologous PRP vs homologous aka allogeneic (aka pooled) PRP. In other words, the study compared how well PRP could grow hair when taken from a patient’s own blood and injected into their scalp against PRP which was sourced from another person and injected into a patient . Surprisingly, homologous/allogeneic/pooled PRP performed better. Why PRP from another person would perform better than autologous PRP is currently beyond me, but we can at least use it as an indicator of allogeneic PRP’s potential. It seems safe to say that allogeneic PRP functions as good as traditional PRP, if not better. Note, the allogeneic pooled PRP in this study is not Carmell Therapeutics’ PBM product.

It is prudent to estimate that a phase 1 clinical trial for Carmell’s PRP product could begin in H1 2024 based on preclinical work which still needs to be completed. Do you think that PBM could be a version of PRP which consistently gets good hair growth results? Comment below. If the price is right, I would certainly consider having the procedure done.