Has Glaxo given up Dutasteride as hair loss treatment drug?

[BaldingHelpMe]

Has Glaxo, the company that invented Dutasteride, given up getting it approved as hair loss treatment drug? What's going on?? What are they hiding? What do they know that we don't?

 

[Oriol]

Weren't they doing trials for that? What happened?

 

[BaldingHelpMe]

Weren't they doing trials for that? What happened?

They stopped.

 

[Oriol]

So i guess they didn't explain why? I think the results were good right?

 

[Armando Jose]

They stopped.

+1. It is a dangerours road closed

Side effects are enormous

 

[whatevr]

^ I can't even.

 

[BaldingHelpMe]

+1. It is a dangerours road closed

Side effects are enormous

The question is, does dutasteride really help fight Androgenetic Alopecia. Hair is more important.

 

[Rudolphus]

Glaxo never completed the phase 3 trials to get dutasteride approved as a hair loss treatment. They must have considered that it was not worth the expense involved in completing trials and marketing it, considering that there was already Propecia/finasteride that does exactly the same thing as dutasteride (although slightly less potently so), and that Propecia itself had disappointing sales. Also there's the fact that dutasteride logically has worse side-effects than finasteride, because it almost completely inhibits action of the type 2 5-alpha reductase enzyme, and also partially inhibits action of the type 1 enzyme which plays little to no role in male pattern baldness and which also happens to be present in our brain tissue.

I guess Glaxo must have decided that the costs of trying to market dutasteride as a hair loss treatment outweighed the benefits in the end.

 

[BaldingHelpMe]

and that Propecia itself had disappointing sales.

Propecia is selling half of billion a year. So sales are strong. It's twice of proscar if I remember correctly.

 

[Rudolphus]

When Propecia first came out, its sales were described as "famously disappointing". It has never reached anywhere close to the level of sales that were first anticipated before it was released. My guess it that less than 5% of balding men even use Propecia.

 

[Pequod]

I imagine the lawsuits over Propecia made them put it on the back burner until things gets litigated.

 

[BaldingHelpMe]

The patent for Dutasteride has expired, so does that mean Glaxo is not going to pursuit its approval for hair loss treatment?