Follicept

Follicept has had a big buzz on the internet lately, mostly due to the fact that it will soon begin trials on human subjects. Follicept was mentioned in a previous post about Hair Regeneration Tech 2015. As a quick recap, Follicept is a topical gel solution that is based on a proprietary delivery method for the growth factor IGF-1. It has shown some cool results in mice which is depicted on the company’s home page. Basically, the mice given IGF-1 showed thicker hair than the mice treated with minoxidil, but only after 39 days of stopping the treatment. So, it appears that the effects of IGF-1 were continual on hair follicles even without continual application of the topical gel.

When’s it coming out?

According to Devon Grimme, Director of Business Development for Prometheon Pharma which is the parent company of Follicept, the company will begin an in-house trial of Follicept starting the last week of April 2015. Devon, along with a few others close to the company will be the members of the trial. Devon has promised to post updates of the trials on several websites and has reportedly created a Youtube account for updates as well. (Update: Follicept Youtube Page) If all goes well and the topical is effective for hair growth there is a chance that Follicept would be made available to the public in the Fall 2015. There is a section for trial updates at the top of Follicept’s home page.

Who developed Follicept?

Follicept was developed by Dr. Stephen Hsu of Prometheon Pharma. Dr. Hsu has several patents, the most known of them being his transdermal delivery for peptide drugs. You can check out his portfolio on Linkedin which is pretty lengthy. Follicept has recently released this presentation of how and why they believe Follicept will work. The document contains detailed information about their study on mice as well as a depiction of IGF-1’s proposed mechanism of action on the hair follicle. It’s worth a look.

My take

I like what I’ve seen from this company so far. Dr. Hsu is the real deal. Devon has been on point about getting things underway. We’ve all been asking for integrity and expediency from the industry. Now, we can take a look at the results from their trial as they come. And, as I said before, let’s cheer them on. 🙂