Orally Administered Metformin to Treat Hair Loss in Central Centrifugal Cicatricial Alopecia

Value Proposition:

• Potential first-in-class treatment for CCCA, a condition impacting a substantial proportion of Black women.
• Repurposes metformin, a well-studied and naturally available compound with an established safety profile and a low cost of manufacturing.
• Oral administration as a simple, self-managed treatment.

Unmet Need:

Central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA) is a form of scarring hair loss that almost exclusively occurs in Black women affecting approximately 16% of this population. There is no cure, and existing CCCA treatments only seek to slow progression at early stages or mask the disease in late stages. As such, there exists a large unmet need for a long-term solution to scarring hair loss observed in CCCA, particularly in middle and late stages of progression.

Technology Description:

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University identified that oral metformin, an existing Type II Diabetes drug, stimulates hair growth and reduces scar formation in CCCA patients. They have also identified a pathway on which metformin acts. This technology offers an affordable and accessible treatment option for CCCA patients that have few or no existing treatment options.

Stage of Development: Preclinical testing is ongoing: researchers have demonstrated gene expression changes in four CCCA patients following low-dose oral metformin treatment.

Data Availability: Data available upon request.