Octane Aesthetics Tech Forum: Panelists Discuss Innovation in Hair Loss Delivery, Regulation

The future of hair restoration may be rooted in regenerative science, but panelists at the Octane Aesthetics Tech Forum agree: the real-world success of these advances hinges on how treatments are delivered and how they’re regulated.

Speaking during the “Hiding in the Shadows of Hair Loss” session, panelists tackled one of the most pressing bottlenecks in aesthetic medicine: translating novel therapies into practical, patient-ready interventions.

“Short answer is that delivery system definitely matters,” said Will Hall, Chief Operating Officer of Acorn Biolabs. “We have been using microneedling as the mechanism to deliver the secretome. We are seeing that there is a high degree of satisfaction from patients with that being done. Similar to PRP, you require multiple treatments to see the benefit over time… after 6 months is when it really starts to hit [and] gets close to 100% satisfaction rates.”

Still, Hall acknowledged that delivery preferences can vary.

“We are allowing the flexibility to test different delivery systems within the studies that we are running to try to understand the different pliability and the different optionality of what will work best,” he said.

Maxim Plikus, PhD, co-founder of Amplifica and Professor of Developmental & Cell Biology at UC Irvine, agreed that delivery matters but noted it is not the core problem. 

“Delivery to the hair follicles is luckily not the most complicated problem in the field… skin is very accessible,” Dr. Plikus said. “Everything just really needs to be tailored to ‘what is your active agent and how do you want to increase bioavailability’ … If you are targeting hair follicle stem cells, you are talking about the 0.6-mm depth. If you’re targeting something deeper, you might be talking about a couple of millimeters.”

The conversation turned to regulatory oversight, which is rapidly increasing in the wake of years of unproven products and inflated claims.

“There is a lot of what we call snake oils out there. You do not die from hair loss, so it is really dysregulated,” Dr. Plikus said. “FDA recently kind of decided that they had enough with that. They are cracking down on a lot of non-FDA products that have hair growth-stimulating claims. They actually are requiring them to remove these claims.”

Angela Hildebrand, Chief Commercial Officer of Nutrafol, shared how the company is actively working to maintain trust through third-party verification. 

“We went and took it a step further and we gained this NSF certification last year... the highest-level certification you can get,” Hildebrand said, describing rigorous testing for contaminants and banned substances. “We thought there is a responsibility on our part to give a credentialing to the doctor… so they know what is in that bottle.”

According to Christina Wing, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer of Pelage Pharmaceuticals, innovation must align with cosmetic safety standards as well. 

“Hair loss is still in the cosmetic space,” she noted. “As we design our clinical trials, keeping that in mind—keeping the safety [in mind] of what ultimately is a cosmetic product—is essential.”

Ultimately, the panel agreed that credible science, safe delivery, and patient adherence will determine which products gain traction. 

“Credibility is a thing we think about a lot and worry about a lot, because it is really hard to get,” Hall added. “The best tool we have right now is being transparent with data publications… watching hair grow can be like watching paint dry. It takes a long time.”