People with alopecia areata, a disorder in which the amount of hair is reduced and patches appear without it, and which can lead to baldness, could have new hope for their hair. These are not cosmetic products – none of which work – or nutraceuticals, but a new drug that has been shown to be able to restore hair in up to 41.5% of patients who took it.
CTP-543 is the name of the new drug developed by the American pharmaceutical company Concert Pharmaceuticals Inc., which has successfully passed a preliminary phase 3 study carried out by members of Yale University (USA). It included the participation of 706 adults between 18 and 65 years of age from Canada, the United States and some European countries, who had alopecia areata greater than 50%.
The participants were divided into three groups, one was given a placebo, the second received 8 mg of the drug that he had to take twice a day, and the last 12 mg also twice a day. The consumption of these drugs was maintained for a period of 24 weeks and the changes in the hair were analyzed for one year.
A possible solution to alopecia areata
The results, which have been reported in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology Symposium Proceedings, have shown that 41.5% of individuals who took 12 g of CTP-543 twice a day recovered up to 80% of their hair in a year, which represents a great improvement in the patient’s scalp. 30% of those who received the lower dose also experienced the same recovery, while among those who took placebo only 0.8% showed this improvement.
Only 5% of participants had side effects such as headache, acne, upper respiratory infections, or nasopharyngitis
The drug CTP-543 is an oral inhibitor of Janus kinases (JAK), a group of enzymes that play a key role in the immune system and that, when activated in excess, generate an inflammatory response that causes hair loss. The research shows that inhibiting JAKs could address the dysregulated autoimmune function that occurs in alopecia areata.
“Today marks an important milestone in advancing new treatments for alopecia areata. I am very happy to see such positive results from the first phase 3 trial with CTP-543. There is a great need for treatments for this challenging disease, and the results of the THRIVE-AA1 trial suggest that CTP-543 may potentially provide an important therapy to treat alopecia areata”, said Brett King, one of the authors of the research.
Another of the good news indicated in the pharmaceutical company’s statement is that only 5% of the participants claimed to have had side effects with the new drug, most reported headaches, upper respiratory infections, an increase in creatine kinase (an enzyme present in tissues and organs such as the heart, brain, or skeletal muscle that is released in large amounts into the blood when injury or muscle damage occurs), nasopharyngitis, or acne.
Now the next step is the presentation of the drug and the preliminary study to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) so that it can analyze all the data and decide whether or not to approve the marketing of this drug, which could mean a before and an after in a problem that has no easy solution.
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