For a startup seeking a large addressable market, pattern hair loss is an obvious one.
Today, an estimated 50 million men and 30 million women in the U.S. face androgenetic alopecia, or heredity-linked hair thinning or baldness, per the American Academy of Dermatology. And while there are some longstanding treatments, they commonly come with high cost, discomfort, side effects or inconsistent effectiveness.
Startups and their backers have taken note. Over the years, investors have poured hundreds of millions into companies working on hair-loss treatments and platforms to make them more widely available.
This week, public investors are also getting a fresh entry into the space. Veradermics, a developer of an oral treatment for pattern hair loss, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Its shares closed up 122% to $137.65 despite a mostly down day for broader markets, indicating investors are enthused about the product. The 7-year-old company trades under the ticker symbol MANE.
Veradermics itself raised around $256 million in the offering, which priced slightly above the projected range. The New Haven, Connecticut-based company plans to use the proceeds from the offering to help secure FDA approval for its hair-loss drug and to support commercialization.
Not receding
Among startups working on hair regrowth, Veradermics has one of the more further-along treatment candidates. It plans to report topline results from one advanced trial in the first half of the year and from a Phase 3 trial in the second half. If all goes well, the company says it could be the first oral, nonhormonal FDA-approved therapy for pattern hair loss.
That said, it’s far from the only venture- or seed-backed company addressing the space. Using Crunchbase data, we put together a list of 10 startups funded in the past couple years with businesses centered around developing hair-loss treatments or making them more widely available.
Los Angeles-based Pelage Pharmaceuticals is the largest funding recipient on the list, mostly due to a $120 million October Series B co-led by Arch Venture Partners and Google Ventures. The startup is applying stem cell biology to develop regenerative medicines for hair loss and plans Phase 3 trials for its lead candidate later this year.
Luminate Medical, an Irish startup focused on enabling at-home treatment for cancer patients, raised $21 million in an expanded Series A this month. It’s currently pursuing trials for a device aimed at reducing hair loss for chemotherapy patients.
And back in San Francisco, longevity startup OneSkin has raised more than $46 million for a lineup of self-care products including a scalp serum that promotes thicker, denser hair.
Hair attracts high spending
It helps that hair is one of those aesthetic areas where people are more comfortable spending what it takes to get desired results. From premium shampoos and hair-care products to salon visits, many of us spend hundreds of dollars annually on our hair.
Hair-loss treatment represents a particularly large market. Per Veradermics, the current U.S. commercial opportunity for pattern hair-loss treatments is valued around $9 billion annually, despite low patient engagement and high dissatisfaction with today’s options.
Consumers would be willing to spend more too, if there were treatments they liked. Veradermics says its internal research found that 93% of pattern-hair-loss patients would like to address the condition, yet only 9% are satisfied with their current treatment.
Investors have put considerable capital behind backing that big market vision. Between 2021 and 2025, Veradermics raised more than $260 million from a long list of venture backers. Per its IPO prospectus, the current largest stakeholders are Longitude Capital (11% post-IPO stake), followed by SR One and J.W. Childs Associates, with about 6% each.
For now, it looks like public investors see plenty to support in that vision as well.
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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