When Did You Know Propecia Was Coming to Market?

Hi Dr.,

You’ve mentioned in previous posts that you don’t know of any new hair loss treatment drugs coming out in the next few years. How far in advance did you know about Propecia coming to market before it was available to the public?

Thank you

I assumed Propecia would be coming to market after it was approved by the US FDA for clinical use in December, 1997. It made it to pharmacy shelves the following month. There had been rumblings of finasteride being a hair loss treatment for many years before this (it was FDA approved as a prostate medication in June, 1992), but I had no way of knowing its approval status as a hair loss treatment until the rest of the world did after the announcement was made. There are drugs with hair growth as side effects that aren’t marketed as such, but I don’t know which of those will end up approved to treat hair loss, if any.