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China’s New Drugs on Way to Treating Male Baldness

Release time：2020-09-02 09:21

While not appearing to be a serious disease, hair loss has already become a global problem. In Western countries, hair loss affects more than 40% of the total population, and in my country, there are about 250 million affected individuals.

 

According to its causes, hair loss can be roughly divided into androgenic alopecia, alopecia areata, and hair loss caused by anticancer drug treatment. Among them, androgenic alopecia (AGA) has the highest incidence, and is also called male pattern alopecia, which mainly affects the front, middle and top of the scalp.

 

The industries derived from hair loss, such as hair care, hair transplantation and wigs, have a huge scale in the domestic market, worth about 10 billion yuan, but there is still a big vacancy in the real hair loss drug market. Due to different causes, different types of hair loss naturally require different treatments. Among them, androgenic alopecia (AGA) is caused by excessive dihydrotestosterone (DHT), the natural metabolite of androgens in the body under 5α-reductase.

 

Studies have shown that the incidence of AGA will also increase with age. Studies in the US have found that among 266 healthy men aged 18 to 49, 48% of them had at least moderate AGA. According to the prospectus of Kintor Pharmaceutical Limited, my country's AGA drug market has been expanding year by year, and is expected to reach 4,731 million by 2028.

 

At present, DHT and androgen receptor (AR) are considered to be the key mechanisms leading to AGA, and are also popular targets for therapeutic drug research in this field. The approved drugs for the treatment of AGA include Minoxidil and Finasteride. Minoxidil works by increasing the blood supply of hair follicles, stimulating the proliferation of hair follicle cells, and local anti-androgen effects. Finasteride works by inhibiting the activity of 5α-reductase to reduce DHT production.

 

However, it should be noted that Finasteride needs to be taken continuously for more than one year to be effective, and its use in pregnant women can cause malformations of male fetal genital development and sexual side effects (such as loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, and ejaculation disorders).

 

Androgenetic alopecia is caused by excessive dihydrotestosterone (DHT), the natural metabolite of androgens in the body under 5α-reductase. DHT and androgen receptor (AR) are also popular targets for therapeutic drug research in this field.

 

According to the Insight database, KX-826, a drug of Chinese drugmaker Kintor Pharmaceutical currently in phase II clinical phase, has also been developed for the treatment of AGA.

 

KX-826 is an AR antagonist. The results of completed phase I and phase IB clinical trials show that the single dose and multiple doses of KX-826 lead to good safety and tolerability in Chinese healthy subjects, who did not demonstrate undesirable sexual side effects. Kintor Pharmaceutical's prospectus stated that KX-826 has the potential to attract more men with androgenetic alopecia than existing treatment options, and is expected to change the market structure of androgenetic alopecia drugs.

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