Pelage Pharmaceuticals Unveils Website: Exclusive
The UCLA spinout with a focus on hair follicle stem cells has fully emerged into the public eye.
PelagePharma.com
Pelage Pharma PP405
More than six years in the making, Pelage Pharmaceuticals has an official website and an exciting drug candidate on its hands – PP405. Back in 2017, Drs. Bill Lowry and Heather Christofk of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine at UCLA, made a significant discovery in stem cell metabolism via the mechanisms of pyruvate and lactate. In a nutshell, the team discovered that increasing lactate production led to increased hair follicle stem cell activation, which is good for the life of hair follicles. Later, in 2019, a press release announced that UCLA had licensed the intellectual property around the lactate/hair follicle discovery to the newly formed Pelage Pharmaceuticals. Many hair enthusiasts then eagerly waited for the next important update to come from Pelage, however, the company slowly seemed to dissipate from the spotlight, until now.
Ready to expand into clinical development, Pelage Pharma has rolled out its new website. The company’s lead product candidate is a stem cell activating molecule called PP405. Back when the lactate discovery was in the news, two drugs were associated with its applicability: RCDG423 and UK5099. It’s very likely that over the past years Pelage Pharma has utilized medicinal chemistry to improve upon those molecular structures for the purpose of increasing efficacy and safety. The website importantly points out that Pelage’s potential solution will be equally applicable to both men and women (we love to see it) and could be useful against chemo-induced alopecia. This week, I heard from Pelage Pharma who told me they are working hard towards initiating a clinical trial. No specific timeline is set now, but look out for an update from Follicle Thought in the future.
What do you think of Pelage Pharma’s potential solution for hair loss? It represents a therapeutic which does not target the hormonal androgen pathway, and would likely avoid the potential sexual side effects associated with antiandrogens. Share your comments below.
Posted in Hair Growth Treatment, Pelage Pharmaceuticals
The progress around AGA companies continues to impress me. Here’s another new drug which could be in trials by the end of 2023 acting on a novel mechanism. Between Kintor’s latest AR technology, Hope Medicine’s PRL antibody, Technoderma’s molecule, and now Pelage, there are a lot of different angles being attempted at regrowing hair.
I hope it works…I lost my eyebrows eyelashes and 2/3 of my hair from taxotere (chemo) they never informed us that it could cause permanent hair loss.
Anyone know what PP405 is? Is there a patent or description of the molecule?
I’m sure someone will dig up a patent for you, but PP405 is the company’s refined analogue of either RCDG or UK5099.
Not sure if you covered this admin, but there’s a new protein in town called Amplifica.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/amplifica-expands-pipeline-for-hair-loss-301731589.html?tc=eml%5C_cleartime
Thanks Bearly, I did see that but wanted to get the Pelage news out first. Will add them all to the updates page in due time. Great to see Scube3 has moved from the back burner to a more on deck role for Amplifica.
That’s great to hear, SCUBE3 has great potential something like this needs to be prioritised in their list of products for approval.
2023 wish list:
Stemson series B funding
Dnovo Series A funding
Epibiotech Phase 1 results
Kintor Phase 3 results pyrilutamide china and Phase 2 results pyrilutamide us
Hope Medicine Phase 1 results
Amplifica Phase 1 starting scube 3
Pelage Phase 1 starting (very unlikely)
2-3 emerging new companies
Love the wish list idea Blave.
I would only add that from my perspective Pelage has a much, much higher chance of getting into a phase 1 this year than a Scube3 trial.
How long would a clinical trial take in this case?
Oguz, a phase 1 trial could take around 1-2 months for the actual trial portion and around 5-6 months for all of the formalities and reporting if all goes well. Phase 1 trials are typically short.
If you want to make sure the hair grows and sticks around , definitely trial will need to be 24 weeks at least. One to 2 months is not enough.
Natasha, phase 1 trials are designed for safety, not efficacy. I agree that 6 months is a good timeline for efficacy. Those timespans happen in phase 2 trials which are designed to measure safety and efficacy.
Great that a website is abailable now – although there’s no news as far as I can see.
I‘ve been following Pelage since the beginning and the information has remained the same. The approach is great and unique. They also work mainly with CROs that’s why they have a mini-team.
The timeframes are disappointing as always. The research emerged in 2017. We have 2023 and a trial is not in sight.
Ben, Pelage entered an exclusive agreement with Allergan back in 2019, and as a company working one or two molecular candidates, they don’t really need a huge team, but their team is quite moderate in my opinion.
In this preliminary announcement I did not want to overstate any potentials, but I did mention I am touch with Pelage leadership, and I would not agree with the statement that a trial is “not in sight.” There’s a reason that the website finally emerged, after all. Keep your head up, mate.
Makes sense, follicle thought. I also wanted to add olix which I am pretty excited about!
I hope this year is a great year for optimists and a terrible year for pessimists LOL
Little interesting tidbit shared by reader John Doe, Rapunzel’s website is now back online. https://rapunzelbioscience.com/ The company of Christiano and Jahoda. It came online around 2018 and went out a few years later.
Hey guys, is it true that creatine increases your dht and therefore accelerates your hair loss if you have AGA. And whats the effect if i take finasterid and creatine at the same time?
Stemson has hired a new CSO Keith D’Amour PhD, which is a positive trend in my opinion.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230201005196/en/Kevin-D%E2%80%99Amour-PhD-Joins-Stemson-Therapeutics-as-Chief-Scientific-Officer
They also lost Dr. Antonella Pinto, the first employee of Stemson and a research associate of Terskikh for many years, co-author of many of his papers.
Terskikh is not CSO anymore but an „advisor“.
There’s quite some change in the structure. Good or not, who knows.
New guy has much more experience in developing scalable therapies in a company setting rather than just a research lab setting. I can’t imagine Pinto was a crucial asset to the company. But regardless, everything depends on what they can achieve with what they have.
*Made quite a few writing mistakes in my earlier message. Please delete if you can*
Hi FT.
When you finally get a chance to interview June Park of Sirnagen, could you ask her to clarify the following issue:
What is the safety mechanism in CosmeRNA that prevents the product from going systemic OR prevents it from surpressing androgen receptors elsewhere in the body if it does get systemic?
I ask this because the safety data on the product is really not that convincing. The issues arise from the fact that in all of their studies thus far, the number of subjects has been low. If you take into consideration that antiandrogenic side effects occur with much higher probability in males, the picture gets ever more murky. The number of male subjects in their studies is not really big enough to say anything reliable about the side effects or lack there of. I could be mistaken, but I’m under the impression that their newer studies with Dermatest did not really differ that much in this regard.
In short, I assume they have some kind of theoretical reason to believe why CosmeRNA would be side effect free and I would like to know what that is.
Thanks.
Ps. Not trying to be a Debby Downer. Throughout the years I have just grown weary about claims of no side effects and like to put those claims under scrutiny when possible. I’m really hoping that the product they bring into market is great.
Forward, very fair questions to ask. In my opinion, virtually every substance which is used topically does have some systemic absorption, so I expect it would be the same with CosmeRNA. I’m thinking that the infrequent dosing schedule will help with this, but I will certainly try to gain more insight from CosmeRNA when I get a chance.
Hi FT why is that a positive thing for Stemson? Sorry my business mind isn’t the best
George, I simply stated it looked like a positive “trend” to me, not a significant milestone, but a sign of activity in other words. The man they hired has some clout in cell therapy, yet my comment is not intended to weigh a ton. Just sharing a brief news line. 👍
A recent comment may have been lost when the site was being switched over.
I remember answering a question that yes, Pelage is developing a pharmaceutical and that it is quite common among all biotech for companies to create websites when their programs are at the preclinical stage.
Thanks you for the answer 🙂
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