MEDIPOST NGF-574H 3X BETTER THAN MINOXIDIL!

Medipost is a South Korean biotech company that is focused on developing cord-blood derived mesenchymal stem cell therapeutics, with the active ingredient CM3. The actual cosmetic product is called NGF-574H and cord blood stem cells are exactly what they sound like: they are derived from the umbilical cord blood. To give Medipost some credibility, they are a pretty big company in South Korea and is the largest private cord blood bank and their Cartistem product (which is also a stem cell based therapy) on knee and hip cartilage regeneration was approved by the FDA about 6 years ago in the US, and they acquired patents in Europe to sell their product for treating cartilage, so they are actually a legit company.

This technique involves exposing mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) acquired from cord blood to an artificially created catagen phase and developing a culture medium that can prevent hair loss. The stem cell liquid medium is not the actual stem cell itself but a medium that can be acquired during the process of culturing stem cells and is said to contain various effective growth factors that the stem cells have secreted. Medipost has created an environment which mimics the biology of hair loss for the stem cells to mingle with which then instigates the stem cells to react and attempt to correct the situation by secreting factors which support hair growth.

To date, Medipost has conducted 2 clinical trials with NGF-574H with both of them resulting in success. 

Their initial clinical results, despite the fact that it was only for 16 weeks, was nevertheless successful in the sense that its efficacy was comparable to minoxidil 2%. CM3 had better efficacy at 16 weeks when compared with 48 weeks of minoxidil 2% treatment, and total hair count from baseline for CM3 was 13.3 and total hair count % from baseline was 14.2% with hair density increased by 14.4% and hair diameter by 28.2%, compared to 12.7 for minoxidil and 8.8% for hair count percentage and 8.8% hair density, so treatment with Cm3 was 3 times faster than minoxidil 2%. Notice that this was for Minoxidil 2%. 

For those who were wondering, minoxidil 5% at week 48 resulted in a total hair count of about 19 from baseline. 

One thing to note from this study is that it was for 29 females and 1 male subject, which bugs me since it was such a small trial with only 1 male subject. So obviously the results can definitely be skewed but since male and female androgenetic alopecia is similar in terms of DHT, there is a possibility that this may still be an effective treatment. Medipost also did state that this is also dose dependent, meaning a higher concentration may have better effiacacy. The other good thing to note was that there was no penetration enhancing agent to achieve the numbers stated, but there is a rumor stating that the final product is going to have a penetration substance which will increase its efficacy as well as hair diameter and possibly more hair growth. 

So to date, Medipost conducted 2 clinical trials with NGF-574H and with both resulting in successful results. Since the prior test was mainly females, there is another larger 6 month study with 90 participants on hair growth efficacy and safety of NGF-574H in Asian adults with genetic hair loss that is currently ongoing but one thing I noticed was that for this inclusion criteria, a minimum of 70 people have to be female, leaving that with 20 at most for men being studied, which is a bit ironic since this was supposed to be for males suffering from male pattern baldness in addition to female pattern hair loss, and given the fact that the previous test only had 1 male subject, I was hoping for at least 50% of the patients being males. 

Males have to be between a NW3-4, so I’m guessing a higher degree of balding may not work as efficient as those with moderate hair loss. Their primary completion date is estimated at Sept-November 2019.

A few weeks ago, Medipost released information that their product NGF-574H is being turned over to a new company called Celino. NGF-574H for hair growth was supposed to launch in Quarter 1 of 2019 but they were having issues with mass production of the hair growth product’s active ingredient which caused a delay in the launch of the product in Korea. However, that issue seems to be resolved and word is that they should have it released into the market no later than July 2019, with clinics and hospitals getting their hands on it first. As far as pricing, the CEO of Celino said that it should be around the price of minoxidil. This is most likely talking about Korean minoxidil retail price from an OEM manufacturer but I would still stay that it will most likely cost anywhere between $50-80 USD, maybe less, but that is just my speculation. This really sounds like a good alternative to those who do not respond well to minoxidil and I really wonder how much better the results may be if used in conjunction with micro needling. But we have to wait and see on their upcoming results for their ongoing clinical trial, but I think of this as something much better than minoxidil without possible side effects and possibly even better if efficacy doesn’t stop at 4 months and if the results from the 6 month clinical proves to be much better in terms of efficacy than the 4 month study, we may have a winner. I am cautiously optimistic, but let's wait and see what we get. Maybe I'll be able to purchase NGF-574H if Celino releases it to the public by the time I’m in Korea in November for my 2nd hair transplant, but we’ll see. Let me know what you guys think of this product and leave me some comments.