Hi Guys
Been keeping an eye on this site for some time now, but thought I would add something that may be of interest:
It will probably be years before this would go to market, but is interesting in the fact that it is a big player who has registered this patent.
Yes, this is interesting and thank you for posting this on hairtell.
This patent document is quite detailed with its chemical descriptions and its litany of other terms, so I just pulled this part from the document that sums up what this all about:
“The compositions of the present invention are useful for regulating keratinous tissue, particularly hair growth and mammalian skin condition. Such regulation of keratinous tissue conditions can include prophylactic and therapeutic regulation. It may also include providing a more noticeable improvement, both tactile and visual, in the appearance and feel of hair on the skin of a mammal. Such methods may provide ease, frequency, and effectiveness of shaving on a mammal, as slower re-growth of the hair allows treated skin to be shaved less frequently, thereby reducing irritation and erythema, and wounding events such as nicks and/or cuts. By slowing down the re-growth of the hair, the hair can become less noticeable, softer, and/or finer and the skin left feeling smoother and/or silkier. Additional benefits may include improvements in the ease of shaving and increased shaving efficiency. Thus, the compositions of the present invention can be useful in inhibiting hair growth, reducing shaving frequency, improving ease of shaving, decreasing shaving frequency, making hair softer and/or finer, making hair less noticeable, slowing the re-growth of hair, reducing erythema and/or irritation to skin, making skin smoother and/or silkier, and/or improving the hair removal process.”
It appears that P&G see’s promise here and is gambling on this being very useful and profitable for the future. These nitrone derivatives sound similar to what some smaller biotech companies are working on. One of those companies has been swallowed by Merck and I’m not sure what, if any progress has been made in this technology that interfers with hair production at the cellular level. It appears that P&G is on the wagon going forward with the concept of messenger RNA cell interference to modulate hair growth. They are also seeing hope in the nitric oxide part of the equation where they interfer with the angiogenesis part of hair growth - knocking out the blood supply or reducing it so the blood is not there to supply the anagen hair with nutrients that keep it alive.
It is interesting that the inventors, Oblong and Helette, may have stumbled on something that will give relief to the hairy while trying to solve the problem for the hairless. In trying to stimulate hair growth for those with alopecia, they may have found how to inhibit hair growth as well. I think it has been said many times that this is the likely path for discovering how to inhibit hair growth.
This is neat stuff and sounds promising. I agree though that it will take a long time to bring this to the consumer level.
Thanks again for getting involved and posting this information.
Dee
hi dazza,
I want to join DFAHEY and thank you for this nice post.
Many thanks for the kind words Dee and JeffK
On this note though, do you think in your opinion this all contributes to a serious interest by the big companies to expand the topical hair removal market, for which the likes of Vaniqa has managed to legitimise? (Think UltraHairaway) Or is it a case of getting the rights to such patents and sitting on them for the next 20 years?
I can’t help thinking that the likes of P&G and Merck already have their own laser hair removal products, and so putting out a topical product would impact on the these sales. Or am I missing the bigger picture in that the sales and distribution of such a product would dwarf lost revenue in their laser technology?