SM is not a true Wnt agonist, it's a Wnt disinhibitor. It can't keep Wnt/b-catenin translocation at pre-Androgenetic Alopecia levels. If you periodically inject Wnt3/7/10 proteins, FZD4, LRP5/6, and RSPO2/3, then I imagine Wnt signaling would stay high even in the presence of DHT because you're artificially increasing it. All SM does is target one or maybe two of the inhibitory factors. It's not enough to fully restore Wnt signaling even in the absence of DHT. This isn't the first drug to upregulate Wnts. A lot of them have been tried on the forums with limited success, going back 20 years. Minoxidil ultimately works by upregulating the Wnt pathway, and its results are similar, but better than, the reported results for SM. So when it comes down to it minoxidil effectively has the same MOA as SM, only more potent, yet it can't even maintain hair for 1/5 of the time that dutasteride does. So why would SM do any better? It won't. If dutasteride doesn't work for you then the best SM will do is buy you an extra couple of years, same as minoxidil.
I thank you for the quick and articulated response.
There are some points i'd like to discuss more about:
Is what you are saying about it not being able to restore and keep normal wnt signaling based on some evidence or is it an assumption based on clinical efficacy from the phase 2 study?
Minoxidil MOA is yet not fully understood.
"The therapeutic mechanism of minoxidil action in Androgenetic Alopecia is uncertain, but a number of possibilities, including vasodilation [
13], angiogenesis [
14], enhanced cell proliferation [
15], modulation of potassium channel conductance [
16] and regulation of prostaglandin [
17,
18], have been proposed."
The theory of a different MOA is also confirmed by the totally diverse response once application of the two topicals is suspended: one, minoxidil, leads to a rather violent effluvium that will erase every progress gained, the other, at least from the data gathered from phase 2 study, is showing an incremental hair count up to 45 days since the last application.
Even assuming minoxidil is actually targeting wnt pathway (which is far from certain) it is clear that there must be something different in the way the two are doing it, so every comparison between them i find to be nonsensical.
The bit about similar wnt targeting drugs tested in this forum before i will not discuss, since i prefer to base my assumptions (which are nevertheless speculations) only on trustworthy sources and regulated studies and not DIY experiments (which, by the way, i don't judge).
In conclusion, i think it is too early both to doom this to a "less-than-minoxidil-2- years-giving" drug, and to proclame it the breaktrough in hairloss drug development that will give you a Norwood countdown.
It has showed promising results in phase 2 study but the real answers will follow the publications of the phase 3 results.
Even the fact alone that it has reached and completed phase 3 is an incredible news and a probable indication that this drug has some potential to unleash.
I hope this post won't make me a fool in a year or two