Are Drug Companies Making a Better Finasteride?
Hey Dr Rassman
First of all I would just like to recognize all the the individuals who help make this site what it is. Its great. I love it! To be honest it distracts me at school a lot. I keep saying to myself, okay read one more post and thats it! But now for the serious part. I’m just wondering about the progress which is being made in the development of new drugs for male pattern baldness. I know you are probably getting sick of these questions, but are companies researching the working mechanisms of the approved drugs minoxidil and finasteride and building off what they already know?Also, who is the youngest person that you have performed surgery on, not including young children with burns, but with male pattern balding and if so what do these results look like? I am also pleased to say that I will be scheduling a visit with you in May to meet with you….. I’m very excited as I am from Canada and have never been to LA before. I hope it lives up to the hype!
I don’t know much about new drugs in the drug pipeline of the pharmaceutical companies, but as I do find out anything I try to post it on this site quickly. Sometimes I get emails from people alerting me to medications in the pipeline that I hadn’t heard of before. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a drug insider that knows timelines on when medications are coming to market. Treating hair loss is a billion dollar business, so while I don’t know this to be 100% the case, it would make sense that some drug companies are working on the next possible medication to regrow hair.
In the treatment of male pattern baldness, I made a mistake once by taking on a 17 year old patient with strictly frontal balding. He had a very fast moving hair loss progression and eventually went on to a Norwood class 7 pattern. This was around 1993, years before Propecia was on the market and it was early in my hair career. Today, I generally wait for:
- Advanced pattern progression that does not respond to Propecia
- Ages of 22 or higher
- Adequate or high densities of the donor hair
- Maturity… and many other characteristics tied to hair and skin color, hair density, coarseness of the hair, character of the hair, and family history
I look forward to meeting with you. Los Angeles is a great city and I am sure you will enjoy it if you gave yourself enough time for touring.
why bother improving finesteride, after all there is only so much minoxidil, finesteride and dutriside can do, i mean after a hair goes though apoptosis it’s dead, and we can’t bring back a hair follicle from the dead, every penny that is paid into improving the drugs is a penny that is wasted and could be better spent on hair multiplication
The future is paying a subscription to annual – biannual hair restoration, restore your hair as you lose it