Biotech turns to hair-loss research

Biotechnology has introduced many wonders to the world. New drugs to treat deadly diseases. Microbes that digest oil spills. Fluorescent fish. Remarkable inventions all.But what has biotech ever done for bald people?Some may feel sheepish raising the question, given the weightier problems needing a scientific fix. Hair loss is not a life-threatening condition, concedes Kaiser Permanente dermatologist Paradi Mirmirani. But half the population, both male and female, sees locks thinning by age 50 -- and many can't take the loss lightly, Mirmirani said."I have tearful patients in my office many times a day," she said. "When they lose their hair, they feel like they've lost their identity."That passionate attachment is helping to speed research on new treatments because investors see a potential gold mine in the field. Most health plans don't reimburse for anti-balding drugs or transplants, but many people will pay out of their own pockets even if the cost is a bit hair-raising.Industry sources estimate that Americans spend more than $1 billion a year on approved drugs for hair loss and hair transplants.That explains why some companies and academics are mining the hair shaft for clues to the molecular mechanisms of balding. They're throwing an arsenal of high-tech tools at the condition: genome studies, stem-cell stimulation, gene therapy, a type of tissue engineering often called "hair cloning" and even robotics.The chance of much better treatments in time for your high-school reunion? A big maybe.Much is still unknown about the phenomenon of balding, a trait that only humans and some monkeys share, said Stanford University professor Anthony Oro. It's not even clear why humans, over the course of evolution, shed most of their thicker body hair but kept a crop on the head.For a minority of balding people, episodes of hair loss stem from diseases such as skin infections and immune-system disorders, or stresses such as surgery and childbirth. Treatments for such hair loss are often geared to fix the underlying cause.But by far the most common type of hair loss is the slow, inexorable thinning of the locks on a timetable set by genes inherited from the father or mother.Certain genes make the top of the scalp more vulnerable to a male hormone, dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, that shuts down follicles so they don't produce new hairs. The result is male-pattern baldness, which starts with a receding hairline and bald spot. The same interplay of male hormones and heredity can cause a general thinning of hair in women.Only two drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat common baldness -- Merck's Propecia and Johnson & Johnson's Rogaine (and its generic equivalent, minoxidil).Propecia, a pill usually prescribed only for men, blocks production of DHT. The mechanism is not fully understood for Rogaine, an over-the-counter solution that is applied to the scalp.Both drugs can promote regrowth or slow the rate of hair loss for some people, to some extent. But there's plenty of room for improvement."There is clearly a great need for more treatments for hair growth," said Dr. Vera Price, a University of California-San Francisco dermatology professor who heads the medical center's hair-research center. "Pharmas, the biotech industry, venture capitalists are aware of this huge consumer need and the fact that it represents a multibillion-dollar market."Pfizer Inc. of New York is working on an experimental drug that works the same way as Rogaine, as well as another compound that mimics the effect of thyroid hormones.Among the small biotech companies attacking the problem is AndroScience Corp. of San Diego, which is developing a drug that degrades the cell receptors for DHT. Drugs for balding, however, usually work only on follicles that are still active.The alternative is transplants. A Mountain View, Calif., startup, Restoration Robotics, is developing automated equipment to help surgeons perform hair transplants faster, and possibly cheaper.Hair-transplant surgeons take follicles from the back and sides of the head, which seem immune to the balding effects of male hormones, and move them to the crown. The success of transplants has always been limited, however, by the finite amount of hair a patient still has left to move around.For those hoping for a new technology that will carpet a bald scalp like Astroturf, the best shot may come from a small group of companies trying to cultivate new follicles like seedlings. Experiments are challenging the long-held notion that new follicles are never formed in humans and that follicles can never be revived once they become inactive.(E-mail Bernadette Tansey at btansey(at)sfchronicle.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)