Hough Ear Institute's Hair Cell Regeneration Project

Lol to hear I want the treatment. Ahahah, they are tripping. I need more than my tinnitus treated lol. They sent you an email?

 

Would be quite the thing if the first person ever to receive NHPN-1010 claims that there was no difference in their tinnitus after the medication. So it will be a success story for sure.

 

Is anyone going to go to record what he has to say?

 

It turns out to give you superpowers. Just no tinnitus relief.

 

There seems to be some confusion regarding NHPN-1010. From reading the information on the Otologic website, it is my understanding that NHPN-1010 is an otoprotectant agent designed to be used to prevent or treat acute NIHL. I don't see how it could be used to treat tinnitus, especially once chronic / long-standing. It could be used to prevent worsenings from noise trauma, however.

The other medication in the pipeline for Otologic, OPI-001, is the one that has potential in treating SNHL through hair cell regeneration. Unfortunately, OPI-001 appears to be far from entering the clinical trial phase, let alone commercialization.

Source: https://otologicpharma.com/pipeline/

 

I agree. As much as I want it to help chronic tinnitus, I cannot find any indications anywhere.

 

If you go to the news part of the Otologic website you will see they say NHPN-1010 may treat tinnitus. I linked the quote in the previous page. Maybe they do only mean short term but it's not specific at all.

Here it is:

Electrophysiological assessment and pharmacological treatment of blast-induced tinnitus

 

https://houghear.org/bringing-back-silence/

It is claimed by Hough Ear Institute several times, as well as their previous PR spokesman, that it has a potential of lowering tinnitus/improving hearing loss. See above link.

 

The method used in the study was to "blast" rats and then provide them with NHPN-1010 over the next two days. So that would seem to confirm the acute treatment effect.

 

A lot of similar type drugs benefit chronic cases too but it's just lower. Possibly similar with this.

 

Well, update:

Nobody’s going to get the drug for compassionate use until probably next year. Of course, right? It’s hearing stuff, none of our lives matter lol. Nothing will ever get done for tinnitus and hyperacusis. All we can do is try off label experiments, stem cells, and alternative treatments. The medical community does and will not ever care about us. Sorry for the negativity. My noxacusis has been extremely bad lately and am not seeing any hope.

 

I'm sorry you're going through a rough patch right now. I am too, it sucks.

Next year isn't too far away now. With compassionate use from this, it should at least keep you going until the next treatment comes out or could very well drastically improve your quality of life.

The slow research mostly comes down to a lack of funding, in my opinion. Researching new drugs is slow though, anyway. Now that hearing loss is becoming a bigger issue, it makes more sense to invest in it, so that's probably why we are seeing more and more research.

 

I try to think of the positives but I don’t have years left, the pain is that bad. I mean unless I literally lock myself in a soundproof chamber, my pain will continue to worsen. I get worse being in the house. I can’t sleep because of the pain. My recent setback has left me with 0 sound tolerance to high pitch noise. Tolerance keeps dropping. I’m going to need 10-20% improvement this year or I’m going to be done for. Crazy man, little squeak through double hearing protection leaves me in severe pain.

I’ve almost called an ambulance the past 3 nights. Then I think of wait, what are they going to do? Give me morphine, and I get relief for a few hours. I started LDN again. Going to deal with the worsening tinnitus if I can get the nerves calmed down.

It angers me things exist but we can’t get our hands on them.

 

Yeah, I've tossed some money their way. I guess that's the reason why I was invited.

Seems pretty big with a gala.

Sorry to read about your suffering, Brian. It really is frustrating when you know people are in a bad place and you cannot do anything about it.

I hope you can hang in there and get some relief soon. I feel the same for me by the way, I suffer too and the quality of life is impacted throughout the day, but I can still cope somewhat at least. Trying to hang in there and hoping there will be something that helps not too far from now.

 

Are you gonna go?

 

Thanks for sending that. I don’t know the deal with the one guy who took the drug, but I doubt he needed it more than me. Not trying to sound me me me but I’m pretty much in bed unable to move. I’m in so much pain. And Hough Ear Institute is showcasing how amazing their pill is after how one person took it. I’m trying to get it and they are like nah, let’s wait another year and drag our feet. This is literally going to kill me, and of course they don’t care lol.

I’m sorry for your suffering too, this community gets dragged through the mud more than any disorder. We all know it, they know it, everybody knows it.

I wish I could manage this. I’ve tried everything, it just got too bad. Not even sure what to do.

 

Most likely no. I'm too far away – not even in the US. If I lived closer I would consider it.

That sucks, Brian.

Yeah, there is so much suffering going on and sometimes I feel that since it's ”only” subjective the world around the sufferer just keeps going and it can feel like no one understands you. In a way I sometime would like to share the pain with someone else, but in another way I think it's good the problems I have won't affect anyone else (which it in a way does, since I'm a more irritable person). This forum is the best way we have to share the suffering.

Might mention that I managed to get lower back pain some months ago when I did a stupid lift – carried a friend around in the park after he carried me (was really foolish I know). So since then I have what I call lower back tinnitus (i.e. pain). The good thing is the lower back exercises and gym training helps.

Let's hope after the gala we get to hear or read what the person that took the NHPN-1010 experienced.

 

Yea. The person is going to go to this event and speak on microphone to a loud room.

 

OK, so unless Hough Ear Institute finds a few company to bring the drug through trials, it’s done for.

This is for the compassionate use trial. So NHPN-1010 is scrap. Nobody’s getting it.

Apparently other companies sell it (HPN-07), so it’s not impossible to get, but nobody knows the dosage; just estimates. Then there’s the matter of taking the correct amount of NAC.

I don’t know why Hough Ear Institute would send an email out saying how great this drug is, how one person took it and never took it again. Something is not right here.

 

Is this not separate to NHPN-1010? Otologic is the company doing that one.

Otologic's adaptation of HPN-07 is called OPI-001. Oblato stopped because Otologic is too far ahead?

 

Something was not right from the get go. The moment a senior figure (Justin De Moss) from Hough Ear Institute came on here making unsubstantiated claims of efficacy and pitching for money, something seemed too good to be true. Then we had nothing for years, followed by a biotech company taking the products for clinical trial...

So where are we at? Someone is going to tell an audience they took the drug and it worked?

A non-profit organisation taking donations and playing like this?

I'm lost.

 

Hough Ear Institute seems fishy as hell with their fundraising and how they have managed this whole thing. Nothing with their timelines, management of the drug, getting funds or struggling to raise funds has made sense. I thought the US Government backed them at some point?

God I wish there could be some pooled data or universal approach to this problem to actually help people. I just wonder how many potential treatments have been canned purely due to mismanagement.

And this is also why people don't give money. What's the point? Nothing ever gets anywhere. There is no progress. Only failure after failure.

 

I’m pretty sure Otologic and Oblato are related. OPI-001 is the ear drum injection. The other version of HPN-07 is OKI-007. It’s being used for other diseases. For tinnitus and hearing loss it’s not going to happen.

Keep in mind, they still have the drug in Phase 2 for glioblastoma. If it gets approved, maybe we can try it off label. Anyway, I’m going to ignore this drug for a while.

 

Yes, they were partnered with Oblato as the lead.

Another one on the back burner. Results from a few other trials coming up soon.

 

Hough Ear Institute got back to me and said Oblato gave back the licensing agreement for the drug.

They said they are looking for a new licensing partner to get the drug through the rest of the trials.

They also said the guy was homebound from severe tinnitus so apparently it must have helped him. So maybe Oblato is a lot at fault here and did a terrible job dealing with this drug.

 

Maybe Otologic will take it over. It does look promising though. I'd imagine there would be some VC who would like to fund it since it's already ahead of most other potential treatments in terms of development and everyone is rushing to be the first with a hearing loss/tinnitus/hyperacusis treatment on the market.

 

Pretty sure Otologic Pharmaceutics is part of Hough Ear Institute.

 

So they have this magic wonder drug that works, it allowed someone who was homebound with their tinnitus become a public speaker at fundraising events, but they are unable to find any company to take the drug to market...

I mean come on, why wouldn't a pharmaceutical company want a proven, working drug for tinnitus? At this stage I don't believe a thing coming from Hough Ear Institute.

 

@ColinUK, I have to agree. After initial optimism it seems very disappointing. And why would the biotech that paid for the licence sell it back to Hough Ear Institute? You would think they saw no use for it. My guess is Hough Ear Institute have now pulled a random person with tinnitus to proclaim he has been cured to try and offload the pill to another biotech. Really, really poor and a lack of integrity from a non-profit organisation.

 

Otologic is a portfolio company of Ascend BioVentures. I don't think the Hough Ear Institute is part of that, is it?