Frequency Therapeutics — Hearing Loss Regeneration

Man, the overall tone of this thread has taken a serious turn for the worse since the readout.

I know I haven't contributed much over the last 100 pages or so, so I took the liberty to put something together to lighten the mood. Admittedly, I stretched the truth in 1 or 2 places for comedic effect - I hope you'll forgive the creative licensing.

Frequency Therapeutics employee discusses...

P.S. Volume warning, but can be enjoyed without sound for those of us with hyperacusis.

 

I thought it was pretty much settled that tinnitus is an issue of the brain. The hyperactive neurons that is causing the sound isn't located in the ear, otherwise a section of the auditory nerve would have been demonstrated to be effective by now. But the neurons in the brain become hyperactive due to the gap in the auditory input, hence it's a central problem with a peripheral cause. As @ThomasRobert said; either we fix the root cause by regenerating hearing, filling the gap, or we may be able to stop the hyperacitivty, for example with upcoming drugs targeting voltage channels.

That's my understanding of it.

 

Thanks, made my day

It may be closer to the truth than we would like it to be

 

Love it. That was sorely needed in this thread.

 

Does nothing to change my take. Being satisfied with this, even when qualified as a "babystep", is your prerogative but unjustified. There is nothing to be pleased with here. It's like Edison's try everything that doesn't work until it does approach.

Sure, every failure brings you closer to a success, but a failure is still a failure in my book, especially when it's already got a stock ticker symbol and investors are about to take a dunk. I'm not going to give FREQ a participation trophy, sorry. You want to keep feeling personally attacked and unfairly mischaracterized by this, be my guest. I'm hardly alone in my opinion of FREQ's performance based on other recent postings (like the meme video).

 

GREAT ANALOGY GLENN!

FX-322 is EXACTLY like Edison's perfection of the light blub and that is a GOOD thing, and why supporting Frequency Therapeutics to keep going is still voiced here.

Edison's first functioning bulb burned for about a day in 1879. Not impressive or practical to have a filament that lasts a day. Imagine the upkeep! What a shit product! That's when he was quoted "the 10,000 things that didn't work." Did he give up there? No, they had something that "worked," but needed development. Nonetheless, it was still a big step from candles + oil-based torch lights.

The end of 1880, just a year later, Edison Company had worked on a number of improvements to that 1879 filament+bulb design. They had essentially developed the incandescent bulb that is still used today.

To use your analogy, FX-322 is Edison's 1879 Bulb. It did something, but needs work. So, why stop now?

 

Throw it out. And your little dumb light bulb too.

 

On a side note, this guy, Risitas, died a few weeks ago, unfortunately.

 

Man, good work, although this is funny and depressing at the same time. Few get the urgency of getting something that works for those of us in the trenches of daily disabling torture.

 

Pity we're a bit of a niche market. Otherwise that could go viral. It's kind of close to how I imagine it all went down.

 

Or it could be like Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos…

 

It is relevant to the company and their future. That is the only reason why I brought it back up. We all want the trials to keep going and this could derail that. Hopefully it turns out to be nothing.

The results from the next trial is still a ways out. This thread would go dead if we didn't keep it alive.

 

I certainly learned one heckova lot from following Tinnitus Talk through the stage of initial hope, the reassurance that selling options is normal practice for executives and that acts in lieu of salary, the drama when the German chap posts his tax returns from his winnings and then the final results. It was a wild ride and it was nothing if not gripping.

But some lessons can be learned. We take a hit, we it down and ask: "What was that all about"!

If we were to compare the Audion model -- I believe it' s a collection of tenured scientists funded by some European governments. Well they didn't seem to have the passion... and at the end of the day they said that there was no Eureka moment. I just hope that the tacit knowledge and the know how and experience doesn't get lost while they are awaiting renewed funding for their next thrust in tinnitus matters (might be years away).

The boys in Massachusetts seemed to have passionate scientists and innovators. But maybe the C-suite were intoxicated by optimism, if I could put it mildly.

Which is the best model? Government funding as in Audion or the Free Market as in the US?

 

Free market wins every time imho - witness the COVID-19 vaccine development.

Having said that, government funding to further grease the wheels can often help (depending on what political strings attached).

In FREQ, I see a highly motivated and super-smart team with a combination of personal, professional and financial ambition driving them toward a solution. They've a lot at stake and want as much as any of us to make this work.

I'd love to know what the scientists are actually working on on a day-day basis right now - do future Phase 2 trials need to be exact repeats of what's been done in Phase 1, or is there any leeway at all to allow for improvements in delivery methods, formulations, etc?

 

And ten years later a light bub was invented that lasted too long and planned obsolence was born. I really don't understand Glenn's argument. According to my researcher friend, small molecules are found all the time that can switch on progenitor cells but the problem is always delivery and safety is usually the main issue. At least FX-322 has been shown to be safe.

Does anyone here think that the Phase 2a failure is more than a delivery problem?

 

You mean the FDA? What kind of grease do they use?

 

Edison wasn't really a very bright person, just persistent. He BRUTE FORCED his inventions rather than using his brain. While that can work, it's like playing the lottery or mindlessly sifting through Wonka bars for a golden ticket. (He also ripped off some other people's inventions and just got lucky in court but that's a whole other matter.)

Trial and error is a part of science, yes, but Edison's ignorance meant he worked hard, not smart.

I'd like to think we should set the bar higher for medical R&D in the 21st century.

What you decide to try should not be purely random but based on sound principles. Yes, a glorified hunch, but better than just throwing darts against the wall. I'm not accusing Frequency Therapeutics of randomly throwing darts, just expanding on my critique of Zugzug wanting to pin a medal on failure.

That being said, the reason why the meme video stings is that hindsight is 20/20. If indeed the lawnmower effect has occurred (and I'm not even sure that's the case--the positive case for FX-322 even working at all is weak) then it's something they should have anticipated. Likewise history is full of many preventable disasters, like the O-rings on the Challenger or that space probe that got lost because of confusion over Metric vs. Imperial systems. So I think it's really not a great thing to glorify failure. There are honest failures and then there are dumb ones. Many many failures are a matter of not using common sense and being careless. That's BAD SCIENCE.

It is odd, though, that this thread is so split to the point where optimists/evangelists are struggling to even understand why we're not jumping for joy over where things stand. Mystifying. I don't know how many more times I or other realists can try to expound on things before it becomes a futile waste of effort.

 

If I recall, during testing on mice, they were able to quite effectively regenerate the mice' cochlear hair cells with FX-322. So we know at least the drug regenerates cochlear hair cells. Perhaps yes it is a delivery problem. FREQ has a lot of trials going on right now. We should get more information soon.

 

Overheard at Frequency Podcast: Episode 1

 

@Gb3, anything important or interesting? I can’t listen to the podcast.

 

There are closed captions.

 

It's all subtitled.

 

I suggest you start by fast-forwarding to the middle. The beginning of it all is very chatty about interests and hobbies and so forth. It gets to the harder information and facts towards the end.

 

Was there any mention about when the severe hearing loss trial results would come out?

 

Nothing related directly to the trials whatsoever.

 

Nope.

 

If I was to sum it all up, I would say it was PR. You know, public relations. Well what's wrong with that? Nothing. Nothing wrong with it at all. It's great that we have people like this fighting on our side. This lady was interviewing this guy for 28 minutes... about his previous education, what made him change from physics to audiology. The exciting challenge of how some creatures in nature can regenerate damaged organs but homo sapiens doesn't have this ability. How the discovery of "small molecules" is the big hope that things can change it all. I would call it a good video. Oh yes, there was a passage on how hearing impaired should communicate and cooperate in creating an environment where they can function well. But no info on trial results or such-like.

You might be reading between the lines that I'm still mulling over whether "The market" and "Free Enterprise" is the best, or let's say the only way to to tackle tinnitus research. No doubt the above is not a cheap low-cost video, it's professionally done. And let me say that if Frequency Therapeutics can "drive that mother home" then all is forgiven and forgotten. But if they can't manage it, then the question arises as to whether those millions and man-hours could be targeted better.

But what else can we do at the moment except wait and hope? Not many others are fighting for us.

 

The clinical trial website was updated. It now says September as the end date of the trial. That's when I expect the results to come out.

 

It helps raise awareness of the issue in the mainstream, but that's about it.

I'd also think a company that already has a stock ticker symbol should be more engaged in executing rather than cruising their way through softball PR interviews. PR of this sort is more deserving of small upstarts that have no backing whatsoever.

 

You clearly hate this company for whatever reason - how much did you lose?

Actually - I don’t care.