SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — San Diego-based company Stemson Therapeutics is making big progress toward solving a problem that impacts many people: baldness.
CEO and co-founder Geoff Hamilton said they’ve figured out how to program and control cell behavior to develop a therapy that regenerates hair follicles to treat hair loss.
“We take the cells in our skin that are responsible for growing hair and we direct them in a way that enables a new hair follicle to grow in the skin,” said Hamilton.
He said this is a tool that is only possible because of recent scientific developments.
“The biology is very complicated and trying to control what our cells are doing in the skin is not simple to do, so over the last five to ten years, technology has advanced and scientific understanding has advanced that we can now control what these cells do,” he said.
Right now, the company is working on expanding its research by adding more staff and experts to their lab with the goal of getting FDA approval and starting human trials.
Hamilton said they’ve received a lot of interest from people to help out with human trials, but they’re not ready to start that process yet and they’re unsure of when exactly that will happen.
He added that hair loss is an issue that doesn’t just impact men. He said many women also experience hair loss at some point in their life. Plus, this treatment could help people struggling to grow hair back after chemotherapy treatments.
“A lot of studies have shown that it contributes to depression. It certainly damages self-esteem and self-confidence and so we’ve learned, we feel like we’ve unlocked this hidden sentiment of people who are looking for solutions,” said Hamilton.
The company has been actively working on their research since 2018 when they were first established. It’s costing about $15 million to get through the developmental phase.
