Frequency Therapeutics — Hearing Loss Regeneration

Wow, good news

 

This might be the more important (hearing related) news I've read since years...

 

Is frequency working on neurons connections? Or only ear cell regeneration? They talk about using this therapy on noise-induced hearing loss? So my guess is yes.

 

"New funding supports expanded work to realize the disease modifying potential of Progenitor Cell Activation (PCA™) beyond hearing loss"

I'm not sure this is the news that I was hoping for. So they are basically saying that none of this money will go toward the hearing loss cure.

 

It's important to realize that Frequency is a company built on a tool (PCA). If that tool works for hearing loss, then great. If that tool does not work for hearing loss, they will move on to other diseases/conditions. I believe Will McLean is the only "ear person" among the founders. A company like Decibel is built solely to solve "ear problems" and will likely pursue multiple tools toward this end.

 

@RB2014 yep I agree with Aaron. By using the PCA method they don't really have other treatment options or more to build on.

 

I understand the concern, but the title of the press release from Frequency is "Frequency Therapeutics Announces $32 Million Series A Financing to Support Clinical Development of a First-in-Class Hearing Restoration Therapeutic".

My guess is that some funds will go to "support" hearing and some will go to "expand" into other conditions.

 

Come on, have a little faith.

Hearing loss is a huge market, it's not just one of their target, it's their main target for now. The platform has been developed with hearing loss in mind. Of course they need to expand their offer. They are smart and don't want to disappear if things go south with hearing loss. Look at Auris Medical : the AM-101 failure might well be the end for them.

So great for Frequency if they can find more options. We're talking about something big - regenerative medicine -, not just a superficial drug to ease the symptoms. They just have a lot to offer to patients in different fields.

But they have hearing loss in mind right now and they need funding to start a clinical trial. And they seem to be able to get the money when needed. And they know talk about 12 to 18 months. The famous "within 18 months" they talked about again and again seemed to last forever, now they move on.

They wouldn't talk about a clinical trial so often if they were not ready. I'm maybe dumb and too optimistic, but the simple fact that chronic noise induced hearing loss might be treated in clinic in a few months is groundbreaking news anyway. To me it has nothing to do with the Genvec trial, it's way more promising.

If the Frequency trial is a failure, I can't imagine nothing would happen for 10 years or more after them. Too many companies are hoping to take the lead on this one.

 

Yes but would this help for us with tinitus?

 

Right now no one knows. If your T is due to loss of hair cells then there is a chance it could help lower the volume, it could eliminate it, or it could do nothing. This assumes the procedure is successful.

Good point Aaron123. Some of the funds could be used to support hearing loss. I guess this is good news as the funding will keep them going for a while. Even if the hearing loss doesn't pan out right away, they could use their money to continue the research, and then maybe come back to it at a later date if they learn more.

 

What is unfortunate about their choice of words is that it implies that there will be a treatment in a clinic in the next 18 months. While this is perhaps technically correct if you think of a clinical trial as being a treatment in a clinic, it gives the impression that there will be an actual treatment that you could go to your doctor and receive in the next 18 months, and that isn't the case at all.

 

Those are my choice of words, not theirs...

We all know here that it's a clinical trial, we all know it can fail (and probably will to some extent, if not completely), but even though, that's a big, big step.

 

I know nothing. I just trust Frequency but also try to stay realistic.

After Genvec, it's the first human trial about inner ear regeneration. Even if it works, it won't be a total cure for hearing loss, T and H. Why is that ? Just because there are too many possible causes for those disorders and we need more time and knowledge to understand all of them.

To me it will be a success if it gives back 20 to 25dB in the high frequencies at least to people with noise induced chronic hearing loss. Maybe it will be more, maybe less, maybe it will just make speech understood better, but it's not about getting back brand new ears. It's a trial, we shouldn't even be expecting a success or a failure, that's not about it really.

 

Not Frequency exactly, but it seems relevant since their approach involves Lg5r+ supporting cells: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnmol.2017.00122/full

On the downside, not sure whether this will have any implication for Frequency, but Lg5r+ can be progenitor cells for cancer, particularly in the colon and GI tract: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaap/ncurrent/full/nature22081.html

 

The co-founder of frequency therapeutics is a redditor and he's talked about tinnitus on reddit.com/r/tinnitus and reddit.com/r/science often.

 

What's his username?

 

@Alue /u/the-leviathan . I've been reading his user history seems now and even when he was early into his PhD. he has always thought strongly that tinnitus could be reversed through hearing cell regeneration. His optimism gives me optimism.

 

holy shit, currently going through it and there's so much stuff. Him in r/startups asking what he should call frequency tx before it even had a name and there's photos of stem cells he's created and uploaded that look like a penis from years back (hahahaha). great find! it's a gold mine of his lab stuff.


http://i.imgur.com/qh4512N.jpg < "Here are some auditory nerves I made from the glial cells that typically surround the nerve cells . Since people with nerve damage still have glial cells, we might be able to turn these into new neurons directly within the ear."

 

Nice find !

For instance he says :
"We used LY411575 to control differentiation of progenitors into hair cells in vitro. However, in the cochlear tissue we actually applied the opposite mechanism and generated more progenitor cells that the tissue would differentiate into hair cells. This is in contrast to LY411575, which only converts progenitor cells into hair cells. As a result, LY411575 will eliminate the pool of progenitor cells/supporting cells in the cochlea, which play an important role in its function, and reduces the possibility of future treatments if new hair cells die. However, if you do not have progenitor cells, neither approach will work."

Pardon my stupid question, but how do we know we still have progenitor cells ?

 

Some interesting information:

 

The-Leviathan is the real MVP boyzzz

 

In my humble opinion this explanation is interesting:

youtube.com/watch?v=v5QMTbSfmMg&feature=youtu.be

It is regarding the Frequency Therapeutics research.

 

I asked him if Frequency's hair cells regeneration could fix tinnitus caused by acoustic trauma (I guess it's the most common kind of T nowadays). This is what he said:

 

Imagine the money they're going to make if this "injection" not only cures deafness but cures tinnitus. Deffo one to watch to buy shares in.

But then again, i don't think I have any noticeable hearing loss, but tinnitus? Can I still have an injection please?

 

Is there any way to invite him onto this forum thread acufenero? So we can bombard him with questions?

 

He's pretty much active on Reddit so I guess you can just ask him to join, but I don't think he'd like to be "bombarded" with questions. They have tons of work to do (and maybe some kind of NDA).

 

I don't think this is a good idea to be honest. He's really nice to answer questions if he gets too many of them he might just stop. You can always ask your questions on Reddit.

 

They're the deal