Overview: Promising Future Treatments for Tinnitus and Hearing Loss

I thought we could get a clear list of the promising research for tinnitus treatments in this thread.

 

Auris Medical AM-101 is meant to treat acute tinnitus while Autifony AUT00063 might also help chronic tinnitus.

 

So far Autifony has no results to show, apart from the fact that if they are planning Phase II the side effects were probably not deadly.

AM-101 did show some promising results, but it's still in test Phase III AM'101 is not probably not going to be available before 2016, maybe 17, with Autifony nobody knows.

From what I read I understand that clinical trials can take up to 10 years so for Autifony maybe 6-7 years is quite optimistic, more realistic 7-8 years.

 

Isn't there also a possibility of FDA Fasttrack for urgently needed treatments?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDA_Fast_Track_Development_Program

 

I think tinnitus will be the last condition in the world where this is used. This is probably for swine flu vaccines etc?

 

Wikipedia is not a scientifically correct site, but from what I understand it says that it only works for life-threatening diseases Neither tinnitus (a symptom) nor hearing loss is life threatening so I don't see why it should qualify.

 

Hi Stina,
maybe you are right, but on the FDA site there isn't live threatening the only point.

http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/bya...ngaccesstoimportantnewtherapies/ucm128291.htm

"Determining whether a condition is serious is a matter of judgment, but generally is based on whether the drug will have an impact on such factors as survival, day-to-day functioning, or the likelihood that the condition, if left untreated, will progress from a less severe condition to a more serious one. AIDS, Alzheimer’s, heart failure and cancer are obvious examples of serious conditions. However, diseases such as epilepsy, depression and diabetes are also considered to be serious conditions."

 

I feel like there will be some effective treatments relatively soon. Hopefully the two above work. And I don't think it's because people are gonna care what we go through but there is ahuge market possibly worth billions of dollars if this need is met. Companies know there is money to be made. So I'm optimistic

 

Previously you quoted Wikipedia and that's what it stated. However, it is not a good source. I suppose this one is better. I don't know if this qualifies then, but we will see.

 

Just FYI - 3d printing of a functional cochlea will never be possible. It could only be used for research purposes or to help doctors in training to understand the anatomy. It would be more likely to grow one out of a petri dish, but even that is probably decades away. Gene therapy is the only therapy that I can see changing or replacing cochlear architecture in the next decade. Look to GenVec (partnered with Novartis) for gene therapy.

 

What about nano-bot technology! Surely if they are creating robots the size of a nanometer (size of a red blood cell) they can treat tinnitus and hearing loss!

 

Sorry that's not possible right now. I work in the nano tech field, and we're just not there yet.

 

But one day! Surely with this type of technology will be utilized down the road to treat inner ears.

 

I believe this was posted elsewhere, but I thought it warranted an additional mention here. The table is titled Selected drugs in development for hearing loss indications:

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v31/n7/fig_tab/nbt0713-575_T1.html

From earlier research in Neramexane, I believe Merz is no longer actively seeking approval for this drug.

See https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/neramexane-for-tinnitus.1334/#post-10926

 

Drug: Ancrod - Fibrinogenase isolated from venom of Malaysian pit viper
Yikes!

 

If it would cure tinnitus, I would gladly jump into a pit of Malaysian pit vipers.

On second thought, pulling a Cleopatra would probably kill me, so I guess it probably cures tinnitus in a sense.

 

First post here!

I am glad to join the community, (not so glad to have tinnitus haha). Anyway I have very good hopes for the AUT3. I discussed the matter several times with friends from the pharmaceutical industry and many VCs are massively investing to find a cure since the world health organization among other NGOs predicted this chronic problem to become huge by 2020 (you can check the WHO report: health2020). It's sad but tinnitus is reaching a critical mass in terms of market and is now worth spending money. Autifony already have closed an amazing 1st round with concrete results (http://www.autifony.com/publications/Autifony_OBN_award_Oct2013_FINAL.pdf), apparently their Kv3 channel modulator is pretty bad ass, plus this first round would have never happened with a very high chance of success

The company is now rumored to be discussing for a 2nd round with OrbiMed (another VC). The only explanation I see here is that they are planning to go mass market very quickly, I am sure they will lobby the shit out of health authorities to get their ROI.

Let's cross fingers for the phase 1 results to come asap! Can't wait to taste those delicious pills!

Human researchers are getting closer and closer to the commercial cure. Just keep in mind that research goes really fast when there is money, in the early 2000's, the papilloma virus vaccine was still a crazy dream after stagnating for decades, money was massively injected around 2002 and in 2006 it the commercial vaccine was released.

Research for tinnitus was ignored for so many years and money is being really injected since 2011 with a drastic increase in 2013. It is very reasonable to expect a commercial cure or at least a decent medicine to control tinnitus by 2015/2017.

 

It's funny that a majority of the doctors does not seem to follow the research at all. My ENT has no clue about any of this (and he also confessed to me that he knows nothing about hearing disorders like T and H and that he's just specialized in nose problems). And my audiologist thought that the VNS/Microtransponder-stuff from 2011 was still groundbreaking news. She got really pissed at me when I told her about AM101 and Autifony. Like I knew her job better than her or something.

 

You do. Any idiot can be an audiologist. It's easy to be something when there is no treatment for it. All they can do is prescribe hearing aids.

The fact that they lump in hearing, a complex sensory organ, with otolaryngology (plumming) should tell you something. Do they lump in optometry with dentistry? No.

 

Ahahah, yeah I guess most regular doctors don't care, they just go through their routine, and don't actively try to keep themselves updated, if a drug is released, they know pharma labs will do massive marketing campaigns with a ton of "incentives" for the doctors electing to prescribe the drug to their patients.

 

Different treatments work well for different people. If anyone is interested in Mindfulness for managing tinnitus, let me know. I've done quite a bit of research in this area at UCSF. I'm happy to share what I know.
Warmly,
Jennifer

 

Of course I am interested. I am currently doing an MBSR course. Nothing specific to Tinnitus.
But if I can connect it to my Tinnitus and better handle it, this would be a great help.
Maybe you can write something about it in Doctors corner.
Thanks in advance.

 

I have reviewed financial information from all major players in the otology business segment. Financial data sources sometimes contain "hidden" information about clinical trials. I have compiled all relevant information into a two sheet document - both financial data, but more importantly - information about the current status of all clinical trials related to hearing loss and tinnitus (there are probably more than you think - at least, I was surprised).

I have doubled checked all information where possible. The information is therefore "pretty accurate". But it is not information done by a journalist (who would typically verify all information with the company themselves).

There are websites for all companies (some more informative than others).

 

Hi,
there are 2 more companies I recently found. Acousia looks also very interesting.

Audiocure Tinnitus/Hearing Loss/Regeneration http://www.audiocure.de
Acousia Hearing Loss http://www.acousia.com/

 

Thank you. I will take a look and see what info I can find on those two...

 

Acousia looks interesting, because Hubert Löwenheim was also the founder of Otogene, a company which was refounded as Sound Pharmaceuticals. He is a well known researcher and holds some patents for hair cell regeneration approaches. But I think it's more or less also an office

One more company found:
http://www.anidapharma.com/index.html

 

http://www.motoemag.com/2014/07/16/ata-names-recipients-of-2014-advanced-tinnitus-research-grants/

Guessing this is new? The one grant there is looking at creating drugs for tinnitus, well isn't Autifony ahead start of them or something cause that's what they're doing also...

 

Damn is it me or the ATA is totally OFF in terms of investment strategy, why the hell going for some wave therapy alternatives. Those technics have failed for nearly 30 years to cure tinnitus and they still give money.

Moreover I went through the article linked to the other project, those guys try to reinvent the wheel, it must be joke. They ignore most of the recent breakthrough in their literature review, and are working on some attempt to mask tinnitus through attention modulation drugs -___- >WTF

 

Probably why tinnitus will never be cured, cause they're putting the money up their ass.

 

No worries Grace, the ATA is more a lobby than the main actor toward the cure, private companies & trusts are the one that are bringing the cure.

The ATA budget is a drop in the ocean of research funding, and it will have little impact on the cure.
Look at all the promising research projects and the shit load of money being invested. The cure is near