Sirna Update

Controversial & Unproven Methods Restricted: Genetic Therapy, X-Ray, Photodynamic
#61

I’m thinking this product relates to a survey that was introduced here on hairtell back in October, 2006. I filled out the survey (and actually did receive an honorarium check for $50 in a timely manner, thank you)and it was related to an ultrasonic device.

My hope is that this ultrasonic doesn’t turn out to be yet another scam product. They claim it can affect any color of hair and will throw the hair follicle in an extended state of telogen. So, it is not a permanent device. How long is extended? Any physicists out there that can explain how this can work and will it work for man hair that is deep and very coarse?

Dee

#62

Hi dfahey,

i think you probaly mixed up Applisonix

Patent:
http://v3.espacenet.com/results?IA=applisonix&sf=q&FIRST=1&CY=gb&LG=en&DB=EPODOC&st=IA&kw=applisonix&=&=&=&=&=

with these guys

Patent:
http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=US2007016117&F=0&QPN=US2007016117

I believe that the Applisonix device is a long-lasting solution.

#63

Both abstracts cited above are the same. I’m a little confused.

Do these acoustic devices operate on the same principle? Can they really generate and pinpoint enough heat to throw a follicle into and extended period of telogen? Can you explain anything about these products to us?

Do you have an invested interest in the Applisonix or are you just a “searching” informed consumer?

Thanks for any information you can offer,jeffk.

Dee

#64

Hi Dee,

im sorry, im only a normal interested consumer.
The only things i know are from the patents above,
which seem to use the same technology but are from different inventors.

#65

Thanks. I hope someone can chime in about these devices. I can’t seem to figure out how this kind of energy will affect hair growth, but I’m hopeful there is some scientific basis behind this that makes sense.

Dee

#66

I think the idea is that the “probe” or whatever they will call it, will be placed in such a way to cause ultrasonic vibrations down the hair shaft. I believe this is supposed to cause heat which will then cause the hair follicle to go dormant.

I’m not sure how they will focus the energy down the hair shaft though…if it is placed on the skin or just above so it just touches the hair.

In any event, when I wrote them this past autumn, I think they were still looking for investors. It’s supposed to be a long-term, non-permanent option.

#67

Hi Jme1,

i want to add something more here.

Im not definitely sure about the Intellectual property thing but at least Angela is the inventor of the magic cream patent:

http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=US2006270621&F=0

What counts for you is this related patent from Sirna I just found:

http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=US2007032441&F=0

Additionally we shouldn’t be concerned if the clinical trial won’t start before H1 simply because buying and restructring a company takes some time. Another interesting link from January is this:

I also found another scientific article cited below concerning Quest and Photoderma. Both their gels contain so called ALA compounds:

"76 Dermatology 2006;213:53–80 Abstracts Assessment of Safety and Efficacy of Topical Photodynamic Therapy Using
20% 5-AlA on Excessive Hair J. Varghese, A. Anstey, S .Varma, N. Nicolau University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff, UK

The aim of this study was to examine the safety and efficacy of topical 5-ALA PDT in hirsutism. To achieve this, 13 subjects were recruited in a single blind study; nine were healthy volunteers and four were hirsute patients. Two matching test areas measuring 4 cm2 of normal hair was selected on the forearm in healthy volunteers. However in patients with hirsutism two areas of excessive hair measuring 4 cm2 were selected. In both the patients and the healthy volunteers, one of the selected areas was treated with 20% topical 5-ALA and other area with placebo cream. Hair counting using a video microscope was carried out before and after treatment in both the treated areas. Treated areas were also photographed in a standardised manner before and after treatment. One area of excessive hair was treated with PDT using topical 5-ALA and other sites were treated with topical placebo cream. Subjects treated with 5-ALA sites showed a mean hair loss of 44 _ 25 by week one compared with the control sites
16 _ 16. This difference was statistically significant (p _ 0.003). The mean hair loss in the treated site by week four was 57 _ 20% in comparison the placebo site showed a mean hair loss of 29 _ 22. This difference failed to reach statistical significance (p _ 0.06). Erythema and pain as assessed by a clinical scoring grade (0–3) according to severity was experienced by all the subjects on the day of treatment but improved by week one and totally disappeared by week four on both the treated site and placebo site. We have concluded that topical PDT using 20% 5-ALA is an effective and cheap therapeutic option for patients with hirsutism. As side-effects associated with the treatment are tolerable and reversible, PDT also appears suitable for treatment of larger areas of excessive hair."

I hope these links help a bit.

#68

Jeff,

Thank you for the information. You will definitely need to keep up with this and keep the forum informed on any further information that you might come across.

As far as the 5-ALA PDT. Do you know whether the treatment with this topical included the use of light as what Quest is using in their clinical trials, or was it just simply applied and hair loss was observed?

A 20% reduction is quite significant if it was only after one treatment. I’m interested in knowing exactly what the treatment was though. I also wonder if permanence was seen. I’m not sure if the trial was done in 2006 or earlier since the article was dated 2006. It would be nice to find out when the study took place and if the individuals taking place in the study are being tracked.

After doing some reading, I am assuming that phototherapy was most likely used for this study since this compound is being used now as a treatment for Actinic Keratosis in which phototherapy is used 3 to 6 hours after the topical is applied. It’s use as a treatment for AK may be where they came about using it as a treatment for hair removal as hair loss was noted in patients being treated for AK.

#69

Thank you Jme1, I’ll do my best.

Regarding the cited article above:
The “_” between the two figures shoould be read as “±”.
I am not an expert, but I interpret it as following:
Laser or IPL or maybe phototehrapy as you mentioned was used both with ALA and with placebo cream.
With ALA cream hair loss after week one was 44 ± 25 % and with placebo only 16 ± 16 %, week four accordingly.

I also did some research on the webpages of the guys conducting this trial but haven’t found any more information. Nor do I have any information about these subjects included and what happened to them.

http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowPDF&ProduktNr=224164&Ausgabe=231841&ArtikelNr=92842&filename=92842.pdf

Thats all i know

But let me write it again: Things have NEVER been better than today for people having problems with excessive hair. I belive that in lets say 3 years from now we will have 2 or 3 efficient and cheap methods for removing hair, maybe not permanent forever, but at least long-lasting. And as soon as they will be marketed, prices for laser and other treatments will drop too.

#70

There are changes on

www.sirna.com

But no news on our magic cream…

Here is a link to some (all???) clinical trials sponsored by
Merck:

http://www.merck.com/mrl/clinical_trials/enrolling.html

-> I haven’t found anything about hair removal here,

BUT maybe there is something else on the horizon (but still very far away). Been searchin the web for about 1 hour on the guy and on SCRAS, but found nothing interesting

http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP1722813&F=0

http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=WO2005087258&F=0&QPN=WO2005087258

#71

I’m assuming that they are just updating the Sirna website, otherwise they probably would have just closed it down and had a re-direct to Merck’s site.

Since the deal is final on March 31, maybe we will get some news shortly afterwards.

#72

hey, does anyone know whats the deal with sirna? it seems like they have jsut stopped all their trials after the aqquisition, the website hasnt been updated and there doesnt seem to be any info about them on the merck site. any info would be appreciated
regards

#73

No, don’t know. I did talk to a couple physicians about permanent hair removal at the cellular level and Sirna’s quest.

They stressed how this kind of stuff is dependent on venture capitalists coming forth and how this not always a steady, faithful way to get things done. A lot of these projects fizzle. This takes a whole lot of spending money. They didn’t talk optimistically about projects like this getting enough attention for a sustained anount of time. They are closely involved with how drug companies work, so I’m thinking, they should know what they are talking about.

Dee

#74

Merck is a very big company with A LOT of capital available to get projects from trials to market. I don’t know if Sirna could have done it alone. I believe even though there hasn’t been any updates on their websites, I think there have been updates to patents regarding Sirna’s hair removal product within the last few months.

#75

JME is right,

Merck is one of the top 5 global-players in pharma.
I wonder if anybody of our 14.000 members knows someone working with Merck or is directly involved with Merck? Maybe they could answer some question about teh start of clinical trials?

#76

I don’t understand how there couldn’t be enough capital to get Sirna’s hairless programme off and running. A quick, simple, painless, PERMANENT hair removal product has the potential to be a TRILLION dollar breakthrough. I don’t know a single woman who wouldn’t want to use it on their legs/underarms or man on his back, etc, etc.
What the heck is Merck waiting for!?!?!!?

#77

Maybe Merck is afraid of being sued again and again and again… Remember Vioxx? Vioxx was a great drug. There are 190 class action lawsuits against Merck over this drug. Merck has set aside a BILLION dollars through this year to pay for legal expenses related to just this one drug. That kind of takes the steam out of research and development side of things for hair removal.

#78

Another thing:

Just looking at this list of 134 clinical trials being sponsered or having been sponsered by Merck is enough to make me wonder if hair removal at the cellular level is something they are going fund. Metastatic colon cancer or finding an HIV vaccine verses permanent hair removal? hmmmm, let me think? Which do we prioritize here?

I’m sorry to be so doubtful and I hope my true feelings about their intentions to help hairy people are wrong. Really, I do, but I’m it’s just not coming together for me. It is my understanding that Merck is interested in Sirna’s role to assist with finding drugs that can interfer at cellular level for different cancers. There are many “risks and uncertainties with these forward-looking statements”. A lot of money and time can be invested by the company with no results. If they discover how to turn off cancer cells, then and only then, may hair removal not be far behind. Just my thoughts.

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/screen/BrowseAny?path=%2Fbrowse%2Fby-sponsor%2FINDUSTRY%2FMerck&recruiting=true

#79

Well, I happen to believe Quest will have something out on the market before Sirna/Merck. That being said, I see no reason that S/M would not go forward with this.

Every year Merck is losing money as their patents expire and generics can be made from these once lucrative pills. For every pill they lose to patent expiration, they need to have many more possibilities in the pipeline.

I highly doubt Merck is afraid of being sued. They are in the business to make money. Vioxx was a bump for them. Many of the class action suits are about to be thrown out. For every bump there is a Gardasil or Januvia.

It’s not to say there won’t be problems with this. Clinical trials haven’t even started yet so we don’t know how well this will work.

Dee, I’m not sure what you mean by “If they discover how to turn off cancer cells, then and only then, may hair removal not be far behind.” Sirna has been working on a number of possible treatments including those targeting macular degeneration, huntington’s disease, asthma and cancer to name a few. This is NOT turning cells off. It is merely the suppression of messenger RNA. Destruction of mRNA prevents protein synthesis. In hair removal this in turn causes disruption of hair follicle integrity.

They know how RNAi technology works. It is the delivery that is the tricky part. With hair removal though, the delivery is pretty simple. They are getting better at delivery with many treatments though. MD trials showed marked improvements in patients sight. Hep C primate studies showed 99% virus load suppression.

One other note. Merck has done some work in this area. They are the makers of Propecia.

#80

I just don’t see anything to do with the “hairless gene” on their pipeline charts, the last being updated in February 2007.