Shiseido: Brief Trial Update 2019
As we get further into the year of 2019 the majority of the online crowd is intently watching for an update from the pivotal RCH-01 trial being sponsored by Shiseido in Japan.
Three Years In Japan
To recap, back in July 2016, Replicel and Shiseido made headlines by announcing that Shiseido’s trial of the RCH-01 technology in Japan had entered a pivotal clinical trial for approval. At the time, the majority of people following this development believed that this therapy was likely to be available for consumers in 2018. But, 2018 has obviously came and went and we did not hear an official announcement from Shiseido regarding RCH-01. Even in this year of 2019 there was some brief speculation that an announcement of results would be made in July 2019, but that has now passed by as well. Rather than let the readers sit in anticipation of an announcement from Shiseido any day now, I’m sharing the last of what I’ve heard which points to a longer timeline than what I think the majority is anticipating.
The Latest On The Trial
At the very end of June 2019 I received a response from Shiseido regarding the progress of RCH-01 in Japan. I was told by a representative that Shiseido was still conducting clinical research with medical institutions on the cell therapy for hair loss (RCH-01). This was surprising as virtually everyone had thought the trial was completed months ago and that results were due by now. At this point I’m not going to attempt any guesses as to why the trial is still ongoing as of July 2019.
Does it still seem likely that results will be shared by the end of Q3 this year? Q4? Please chime in and comment below with your expectations of the Shiseido trial.
Posted in Hair Growth Treatment, Ryoji Tsuboi, Shiseido
Yikes, maybe they were bought out by Histogen?
keep them in a job or the trial has gone well but something out some miner patches it might have .thats what I’m hoping
I bought Replicel penny stock several years ago, so I get their regular emails. I recall a few years ago some cleverly-worded but disappointing news referring to their first results in Japan. I inferred that they were not anywhere close to having promising news with hair loss treatments, but that they were all smiles and hopeful with their tendon repair work. They could have been going down the wrong road all along, and had to backpedal back to square one. Hopefully I inferred wrong, and no news is good news?
@ScottieS. did you mean disappointing results from the trial in Japan or the trial that Replicel did themselves in germany? can’t remember replicel talking about japan results…
Glad you are still optimistic, hoping for your stocks and our hair that no news could be good news too.
All of their emails/newsletters reference their forward momentum in Japan with Shiseido. I vaguely recall them describing low hair counts after certain amount of months with what must’ve been their 1st trial? Compared to their glowing news about achilles tendon research, it sounded like they were not near where they’d hoped to be with hair treatments. They don’t really say “we’re failing”; they phrase their news in “cautiously optimistic” ways, which is frustrating. My penny stock took a dive after I bought it, and has stayed there. That also fuels my pessimism.
Yes, I received the update by email. This points to the fact that an announcement is not imminent and could be several more months before any official results are shared.
Shiseido and Replicel do not do anything to protect hair inductivity during the cell culture. And hair inductivity is lost during culture. This is why Aderans and Intercytex failed. Aderans and Intercytex harvested hair cells and then went to culturing to create more but during the culture process the hair-inductivity was lost so the cells did not produce hairs when the cells were injected into the patient’s skin.
Replicel and Shiseido are making the same mistake. Hair-inductivity in the cells must be protected during culture or the cells will turn into skin cells instead of hair cells.
Some people say that Replicel uses different cells than the cells that Aderans and Intercytex used and those cells don’t their hair-inductivity to be protected. They may be right. I don’t know for sure. But I really think that Shiseido failed or else they would have prevented results by now. And I think the reason they failed is that the cells they used lost hair-inductivity during culture.
And Shiseido/Replicel will probably be the last hair-growth effort using cultured cells without protecting the hair-inductivity of those cells. I’m surprised that Shiseido/Replicel are pushing non-induced hair cells at all, given the failure of Aderans and Intercytex. I think that Shiseido and Replicel are foolish for trying non-induced cells even though they knew Aderans and Intercytex failed when they used non-induced cells.
Ok, that one is a wrap, at least for now. Anything we write right now is a pure speculation. This kind of news makes me doubt about efficiency of the Hair Clone potential treatment.
It`s been a week, did the doc from Hair Cell give you green light to publish more photos from his trial? Do we wait for an update?
Thanks again
What hair cell photo? as in haircellstim results ?
Yep, there is a link in the comments below stemson article
wow if that’s 3months and same grade hair cut hes gain pigment, hair shaft thickness and count by the looks of it. i,m shocked more people are not hyped about this haircell as they have developed real world treatments for other conditions using similar tech and the ceo is a rock solid fullhead
re: Paul – It’s interesting for now and other subject photos will tell a lot. But lol @ ceo is rock solid full head
Hi faust, one thing to mention is rch-01 is still a technology invented 10 years ago even though it’s trialed today.
I didn’t receive the haircell photos yet, going to follow up again today. Most trial participants should be done now.
also faust, just got the email response today from the doctor doing Haircell trial. Here it is: “That was my best photo so far- most people haven’t yet had pic number 2 as they are still completing trial but I will pass on photos as soon as I have them.” Little wait time involved.
Admin,Is that main u got the rch-01 results photo?
Well at least dude’s honest, and in this industry that’s rare..
They have very capital intensive operation going on there, as far as I saw there is no need for FDA clearance so that cuts down liability side of their balance sheet. On the other hand this hetrogeneous approach with mulitple treatments will be hard to evaluate scientifically and we’ll probably have big individual variations in terms of efficiancy.
Most important, photo is great (better than any PRP result I saw so far) and if the rest of them are in that category, I’m sold.
p.s. we need some good news, last week with histogen and shiseido was brutal.
Hi all
I want to know any last treatment for hypotrichosis hair ? Multiple sessions of Stem cell from fat it could be the treatment with PRP injection every two week ? Regards
On their web Q and A section they couldn’t answer their own questions I think it’s all concepts. Big companies buy concepts and work on it because they have money ,the real treatment come out of blue it will happen eventually
What is this web Q&A? Is this Shisiedo? Do you have a link please?
On RepliCel web it’s FAQs
Ah yes,
Ive seen that.
That page has not been updated it a while.
Interesting response. My feeling is Shiseido have had a decent result (not a cure) but maybe stalling due to the issues they have with Replicel. Anyone trying to correlate anything from Replicel with this is barking up the wrong tree. I would bet all I have that Replicel have no idea how Shiseidos trial has gone or what their intentions are. Hairloss talk go to the annual hair loss convention every year. In 2018 they reported that they went to Shiseidos stall, mentioned Replicel and were told in no uncertain terms they would not comment on Replicel. These 2 companies have been at loggerheads for years. That is why I take any news from Replicel with a pinch of salt. Don’t forget how big Shiseido is. 3 biggest cosmetics company in the world. They do not have to rush. They feel Replicel have not fulfilled their end of the bargain (second trial in Germany) and therefore in breach of contract. You don’t get to be a huge company by being nice in business. I honestly think the delay could be a good sign.
I agree with what you say about the current Replicel-Shisiedo relationship,
It would appear as though they are not co-operating very closely at this time.
I read somewhere that apparently Replicel CEO Lee Buckler had asked twitter followers who were attending this years world hair congress to ask the Shisiedo Reps. What was going on with Phase 2 results.
Not a good sign.
To echo what you say,
Shisiedo aren’t in a hurry.
Although, I wish they would.
I also hope theirs and Replicels relationship improve, it would be conducive to a greater chance of success for RCH 01.
Naz, what exactly are you asking? stem cell fat injections plus prp every two weeks? Sounds like it could produce some results but stem cell fat is a little invasive and similar to PRP efficacy. Also, the whole situation sounds a bit pricey.
How did You get The answer of Shiseido? Have you written them an E-Mail?
Pls try RepliCel desktop site on mobile it’s not easy to find
hi Amar, yes i tried to send you a note at the email you provided.
Well this isn’t good news,
But as of now it still isn’t bad news.
We just have to wait…
Mattt, that is one of the most rational comments I’ve read on a hairloss site in a long time! I’ve worked on teams that have developed and launched innovative medical devices. As we say…if it was that easy everyone would be doing it!
Well im trying to maintain a cautious optimism.
It would seem that every company has exceeded their predicted timelines so far, it seems inevitable that Shiseido would.
That said, time is precious and waiting is difficult.
Guys, bear in mind that if/when Shiseido comes to fruition that the likelihood that it’s a one trip to Japan and done treatment is remote. At least two trips, possibly more. That is unless the cells can be extracted in your home country and sent to Japan for culturing. Be realistic in what the treatment protocol will be. It concerns me that many seem to indicate they think the product (along with Riken) will be out by 2020, hop on a plane one time to Japan, have the procedure and then your done. I doubt this will be the case, hope I’m wrong.
IMO if RCH-01 was effective Shiseido would have released the results already. The fact that Shiseido has NOT released the results is indicates that the technology failed.
Yoda, your team got anything in the pipeline for hair growth? lol
I’m a device guy, unfortunately no treatments in the Yoda pipeline except hope!
maybe throughout the trial shiseido was found some ways to improve the treatment?
Well, that leaves us with the two stem cell derived topicals and Follica.
All the others…who knoes
I’m sure we will be hearing from Shiseido. If the results aren’t what they anticipated, they will have to decide to begin again or abandon the project. I’m sure they are weighing their options.
Last time ceo said results will come out few week,next time said in July,now?wtf?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCcF5lBo0hY
This was posted on /tressless.
Its apparently an interveiw with Dr. Tsuji.
Its in Japanese and doesn’t have english subtitles.
The poster claimed that human trials started this year and that a price of around $300,000 – $400,000 was quoted!
Anyway we can get this translated and verified?
I’ve seen that video online. I’m actually in contact with the guy in the video I’m not certain about the idea that trials have started yet but he did tell me around $350,000 for the price of the treatment when it is first released. Although that pretty much rules out most people, I still haven’t heard the technology has been verified to work yet either.
I will ask about the trials and get back whenever I hear something.
$350,000 ? but what does it mean in terms of density or NW level ? there is still no photo of what tsuji can do on a real human scalp… it rather looks like a wild guess to me 🙂
I agree, I think that the idea that a price has been floated out will temporarily distract from the fact that the treatment has (as far as we know) not been in a clinical trial yet and has yet to show it works for humans. Somewhat of a natural reaction. That being said, $350,000 is pretty steep.
$350,000 is very steep,
Didn’t they quote a price of around €60,000 for a nw6-7 restoration?
I cant remember the € per graft they quoted.
Any news of them btw?
Tbh, even though they are very new on the scene,
They are the only company that actually have released photograph proof of their cloned hair aka Hairoid (unless ive missed something).
80k is considerably cheaper,
Still it I imagine its far too early to really confidently determine what the prices would actually be.
Any update on them planned?
They have trials planned for the US didn’t you say?
Also, that cell therapy tweet piqued my interest.
Maybe they meant JPY 300,000 which would be about USD $2,800
That seems unlikely though,
Japan is not a cheap country.
Mattt, I was the one who uploaded the video in hairlosstalk and then someone uploaded it in that other part. I translated it anyway I did a summary in hairlosstalk.
I’ve been talking to Fuji from the HairLossCure100 Japan blog. He speaks Japanese and tells me that the information from the video/blog is complicated. He says trials may begin in 2020-2021 and could take up to 2 years. Even Fuji and I have to communicate through translation so it can be difficult. But it seems to make sense because hair follicles take up to a year to grow in from standard hair transplants.
@Follicle Thought Are you and Fuji talking about Dr. Tsuji? About the trial taking 3 years and all that? Or someone else?
Also, now that I have a clearer view on hair cloning (thanks to you 😉 ) do you think that a cloning procedure will come out in the next 3-5 years? (If a trial is successful) Because with all that talk of trials and testing and legislation and what not cloning in a year or two is seeming less likely. Hope I’m wrong but it seems a little more like reality unfortunately. Ur thoughts?
Greg, doing my best to get the story straight with Fuji. Yes, we are talking about Dr. Tsuji. Fuji watched the video and gave me his feedback. As far as I can tell for now, the treatment is multiple years away. I’m going to post an update for it.
I think within 5 years there is definitely a possibility for a cloning procedure to be out. The idea of Tsuji being out before the end of 2021 sounds like a longshot based on what I’m hearing. Though, there could always be another company that surprises with their trials.
Hey FollicleThought, I also watched the video and my Google Translate (not the most reliable I know) has him stating “Application to humans started clinical experiments within 2019”. You don’t think this means that they are back onto the schedule with trials starting 2019 and release 1-2 years later?
Hi, First of all, many thanks for all the updates and information this site offers. Does it mean that each clinical trial will take two years? That is at least 4 years?
Bar, Fuji says the trial could take 2 years if the Japanese blogger is accurate. At this point I don’t know if further trials will still take 2 years. Everyone is piece-mealing this together at one time. It’s an interesting point though, because for hair transplantation it takes 8-12 months for results, so its curious on how long a clinical trial will take.
Ah ok,
Do you speak Japanese?
What was the converstaion regarding trials on the video?
Hello, Joseph!
Is there any chance we could expect an update on NGF-574H from you?
Thank you for your work!
Hi there, right now there is a guy on youtube who has access to the product he says he’s going to be posting updates after a couple months. I’ll definitely keep an eye on him and if there is good results, it seems fair to share them at that point.
It’s bit strange not Celino marketing this, it’s still Medipost marketing
Hi! What can you tell about the photo that you have? Are you thinking to share soon?
So, in summary, Histogen’s phase 3 in Mexico is a bust, Replicel is further away than we thought and, not only has Tsuji still not started human trials, but it’s also gonna cost $300k for the procedure. I’m seriously bummed out right now.
I need some good news ASAP.
Hear ya Corwin. I guess this is going to change the perspective of the upcoming treatments a bit. I’m with ya on that good news ASAP vibe.
As I said, keep your perspective realistic guys. Yoda’s view, for whatever it’s worth, we’ll have a treatment like Follica, Breezula, Saumed in the next 2-3 years. The exotic cell based therapies are still a few years out, like 5-10 years. In the meantime, get on proven treatments (aka big 3) to save and maximize what you have.
You’re absolute right Yoda ,tsuji manages 100% re-growth it’s not a treatment for $350000 we can argue that it will come down to reasonable rate but when?it will take 5years to release then another 5 to10 years , that will take us into point don’t care about it so we have to stick with your top three . Hope you agree with me
Was never a fan of the ‘Tsuji bias’. Seemed to create unrealistic view on things. Now we know where things are really at.
I think we’ve been confused about the dates of the clinical trials. It was all by email to a hairlosstalk user, in which he indicated that he would be testing with humans in 2019. And it’s true, but not the trials as we thought, but experiments.
What apparently seems to be that Tsuji is doing clinical experiments with people during this 2019, not the clinical trial. I imagine they are testing tolerance etc before moving on to the real trials, phase 1?
@Soull Very interesting news. Where did you hear it? Sounds like a mad scientist approach to hair loss :).
That is an interesting theory soull. Still sounds a bit speculative to be honest. I think it will take the next Organ Tech press release to get the truth. If I had to strictly guess at this point I would say Tsuji human trials start somewhere around Q4 2020 – Q2 2021.
In other news, Paul Kemp just replied to the HairClone article if you guys are interested..
Its really interesting how this Shiseido story has turned into a full blown discussion on Tsuji. To confirm Riken have released pictures of follicles cultivated from human cells with the now famous nylon thread going through them. When Organ Technologies announced their pre-clinical trials last year they stated that human trials would start in 2019. That seems not be the case now. The last update in March this year stated that trials will commence in 2020. But the reality is the procedure that Organ Technologies/Riken/Kyocera hope will work has been created. So the cure everybody wants maybe with us and it’s just proving it works. Another thing to consider is that hair follicles that could potentially produce 10,000 human hairs were cultivated from a patch of scalp 1 cm2 and used in the pre-clinical tests on mice. I doubt trials will take 2 years. Trials on mice showed that hair sprouted after 2 weeks. So I don’t think using a conventional hair transplant is a comparable time line (just my opinion). Finally, even if this does succeed and goes on sale to the general public it takes 7 years for it to be considered a genuine treatment in Japan under their regenerative medicine laws. So if you get this done within the first 7 years you are effectively paying to be part of the trial. That’s probably why the price quoted is so large. To control the numbers in case anything goes wrong. All interesting comments.
Welsh, which were the photos of the Tsuji human follicle? The ones from the paper in March still describe mouse cells “using bulge-derived epithelial cells and dermal papilla cells isolated not only from embryos, but also from adult mice (figure 3b)”
Hi FT,
Please see the link below. Read the description underneath the Picture at the top. The article could have got it wrong. I will obviously bow down to your greater knowledge if these are the pictures you are thinking of and say they are not human follicles. Cheers.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201806050032.html
Welsh, no worries I was not familiar with this article. As far as the date of this article, it’s hard to tell. very well could be human structures. Cheers
At this stage, I think we should disregard the price. The first thing we NEED, is to be able to go from a NW 7 to a NW 0. If the cost is 350K, then be it. Once it is out, once the tech exists, the prices will lower over time to reach mass public and competitors will also appear thereby lowering the overall prices. I prefer waiting a few years to have enough money / more decent price offered rather than praying for a cure to actually come to existence.
What I do however still find dishonest from all these companies is to not give clear indication to the public who is currently their groupies and will later be the first buyers.
thx
Greg.
I indicated experiments according to the boy’s version of the video I published in hairlosstalk. According to him, in 2019 there have been “experiments” with people. in 2020 the trials started.
Soull, can you link that video you posted in the comments?
Looks like they’re not waiting for the government to do the actual work. Which is a good thing because if you have something to work on (Hair that works) then they’re not going to wait for anyone to give them the green light.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCcF5lBo0hY
Medipost NGF 574h release in Saudi Arabia they have Facebook ac in Saudi
Not yet
Are you from Saudi Arabia Kapil?
No admin but I think I can buy from there I am in UK
@Soull Thanks man
Hi Follicle,
Any chance you can email back shiseido and ask for the expected timeline for this product?
thanks.
Admin ask Shiseido /lee ceo now what please
Hi Piotr,
Right now Shiseido is not going to release a date or timeline for the product because this is usually how large companies operate. I will wait a while and try to get back in touch. It does seem one way or another an announcement will be made in 2019.
Only 1 month left for the update of our big giant company
Another cryptic tweet from regarding hypoimmunogenic DP cells.
Not sure who is in charge of their twitter account but whoever they are, they sure are a tease…
Any plans for a catch up interview admin?
Admin was very excited about NGF574H but lately he is not , that worries
It’s still a very interesting product Kapil, right now is the period of about 3-4 months when it is released when multiple people will try it to see how it functions. There is only one guy on youtube right now trying the product in public, but with more clinical results to come. At this period we watch for results.
Matt, yes planning on sharing some info as soon as possible. Will certainly ask them about the plans for the dp cells and what their plans are for them.
Excellent news,
Thankyou admin
Admin, have you seen that new video about Tsuji that’s been floating around ton he web lately? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCcF5lBo0hY You think it’s real? Because the guy who interviewed him was given the suspected price (180K-380K) and release date (2020-21). What do you make of this? You think it’s real?
Thanks
Hi Greg, yes I posted that video in the Updates section in the middle of last week.
Here’s my take on it. The price seems accurate to me, there’s no reason to fake a high price. The fact that the price is so undesirable, if Organ Technologies said it, it’s highly likely to be true. As far as the date range goes, I certainly believe he is repeating what Tsuji told him. I think for Tsuji’s treatment especially that we should focus on a clinical trial date rather than a release date. Important to remember, the things to be attempted in this trial are unlike anything else seen before. For example the placement/direction of the follicle germs. It’s not just an injection. 2021 seems earliest possible for release as far as I can tell.
So this is great news then. Some human trials have already been done contrary to the popular belief that they were still yet to commence. Who cares about price? The fact that it’s going to be out is really all that matters, as prices drop. So this is really the “cure” we’ve all been looking for then…
I don’t believe trials have started yet. Typically there is an obligatory press release at the beginning of a trial or a month or so before trials commence.
Certainly agree that a treatment being out and approved is most important over price, however we’re not there yet. After clinical trial process I think a bigger discussion about price should begin.
Right, no trials yet but those “experiments” have been done. What do you make of that?
Where was the mention of the experiments? Was this from the recent video from Japan?
Yes, I believe so.
I will try to get more clarification on this subject.
I think the “experiments” were also mentioned in the beyond health article but I’m not sure: https://project.nikkeibp.co.jp/behealth/atcl/feature/00003/061200009/?P=1
It’s a big phenomenon these days but truthfully we will have to wait until Organ Technologies produces an update. The idea that a price has been released is cool and of course its noteworthy information even at this stage, also it’s somewhat of a moot point until the treatment has been shown it can work in humans.
There’s a bit of confusion regarding ‘experiments’ happening in 2019 and also clinical trials happening in 2019/2020. It may not be able to get clarified until a new press release is issued.
Motherfucker Shiseido