Why Doesn’t Merck Make a 10 Year Propecia Study?

Hi, dr Rassman

I did a hair surgery for 5 years in my corners. I have been using propecia since that day. I must say that propecia works pretty good for me (I am 37). I will take that pill every day of my life and I will personally thank you for your advise to never quit using it. My crown is still there with hair. I have a lot of hair, but the most of them are thin. My theory is that propecia helps me to keep them even though they are thin. I hope propecia will help me to keep most of my hair the next 30 years. Of course I know the most of us loose more and more hair as we get older. I will strongly advise men who are loosing hair to use propecia and I am 100 % sure that this medication will work much longer than 5 years. My question is why can´t Merck make a 10 year study ? I mean propecia has been around now for a while.

Best Regards

It’s not that they “can’t” make the study, but why would they? Honestly (and this is pure speculation), my best guess as to why they haven’t released a 10 year study — there’s no need. The medication is already FDA approved, the side effect incidents are very low, and the cost involved to conduct such a study wouldn’t make up for the fact that the drug will be off patent in the coming years (meaning there will be a generic 1mg legally available in the US at some point). As they are a publicly traded company on the NYSE, I think their shareholders would frown on unnecessary costs involved with doing follow-up studies on a medication that is already widely popular and FDA approved. Money talks.