Frequency Therapeutics — Hearing Loss Regeneration

[Chad Lawton]

@Chad Lawton, are you selling now? What a shame!!!

Yea, I'm selling most of my shares. I was not anticipating them discontinuing both FX-322 and FX-345 at the same time. They went from having 3 shots on goal to now only having 1. I took a huge financial loss but also just sad from a tinnitus sufferer's perspective.

 

[lello]

So are FX-322 and FX-345 over for good, or can we hope for some more research?

 

[scotty03874]

Yea, I'm selling most of my shares. I was not anticipating them discontinuing both FX-322 and FX-345 at the same time. They went from having 3 shots on goal to now only having 1. I took a huge financial loss but also just sad from a tinnitus sufferer's perspective.

Me too. I'm out like $40k. Such a shame. I'm FAR more upset about the potential of the drug too. Money comes and goes...

 

[Pero1234]

I got into stocks because I believed in the research by this company and hoped to get some silver (or gold) lining out of this trauma. Everything happens for a reason, right?

I cannot imagine a more effective learning experience when it comes to how to read stocks / how to invest and understand the risks involved.

For that I am humbled and grateful. I will not repeat this mistake.

 

[SmallRonnie]

So are FX-322 and FX-345 over for good, or can we hope for some more research?

100% dead and never coming back.

As they said themselves, this failure will help future research by showing what not to do. That's about it. It's bad but not completely useless, even if that use is minuscule.

Research is extremely slow.

 

[scotty03874]

Yea, I'm selling most of my shares. I was not anticipating them discontinuing both FX-322 and FX-345 at the same time. They went from having 3 shots on goal to now only having 1. I took a huge financial loss but also just sad from a tinnitus sufferer's perspective.

I dumped it all, 20,200 shares. Funny how that works. Just a month ago I was up like $65,000, that's biotech for you. Gone now, two losses at once, hearing recovery/tinnitus and a big chunk of money...

 

[Joeseph Stope]

My sympathy and commiseration all around.

Taking a long and a broad view, it might indicate that the scientists need to increase the knowledge base and gain an understanding of what's happening in the cochlea and brain or dorsal cochlear nucleus.

 

[xCyborg]

I dumped it all, 20,200 shares. Funny how that works. Just a month ago I was up like $65,000, that's biotech for you. Gone now, two losses at once, hearing recovery/tinnitus and a big chunk of money...

Oh wow, -80.7379%, so sorry.

I think top execs must have jumped ship a long time ago, is that not insider trading?

 

[ZFire]

Unless you're willing to throw money down the shitter, PLEASE at least try and learn to read a price chart. Tinnitus research has screwed so many of us over the years, don't let the tinnitus stock market screw us too.

To be fair, individual stock picking in general is a losing game however you look at it. It's not exclusive to the 'tinnitus' stock market.

 

[SmallRonnie]

Oh wow, -80.7379%, so sorry.

I think top execs must have jumped ship a long time ago, is that not insider trading?

Nah, there are rules about them trading. I'm pretty sure they need to make all their trades public.

Sometimes they get their spouse to actually make the trades though, like Nancy Pelosi lmao.

 

[xerpes]

Well, perhaps we can stop the hysteria now.

As a scientist, I always said I saw next to nothing in the results, describing it as limping around from failure to pass to failure.

20,000 comments on what I always considered fool's gold. Yes, I wanted it to succeed but the case was never there.

Slick PR is all they ever had. Thank god we are put out of our misery with this hyperbole nonsense!

I know what I am asking is only speculation, but as a scientist, what's your best guess for when we might get a reasonably effective tinnitus treatment?

 

[Nick47]

@xerpes, when I say scientist, I mean science graduate and college lecturer. I'm no big wig but the results did not impress me.

what's your best guess for when we might get a reasonably effective tinnitus treatment?

Dr. Shore's device in December 2023 - effective for at least 1/3rd, maybe a bit more than that.

Pimozide and SAGE-547, depending on results, possibly in 2024 - and as both are already on the market, they would be repurposed for tinnitus.

Electrical/Extracochlear stimulations and DBS type stuff in 2030.

I always leave well alone any clinical trials that are not for tinnitus, like XEN1011/BHV-7000, preventative/acute stuff like SP-1005 and Hough Ear Institute's pill. They are theories and we can get carried away by magical thinking.

If anything happens to help some people off-label, brilliant, but I can never buy into a company thinking they have a treatment for a symptom with no treatment, but decide they will trial it for other things first.

 

[lusiol]

 

[UKBloke]

To be fair, individual stock picking in general is a losing game however you look at it.

Why do you think that is?

 

[Lucifer]

I definitely want to see more in-depth results of this trial. Did the success rate need to be at least 40% to pass the trial? I wonder if they were anywhere close to this number?

 

[patorjk]

Two months ago Frequency Therapeutics did a story with CBS that featured a former trial patient saying they got "84%" of their hearing back. It's now less than 2 months later and they've shut down all of their hearing programs and scrubbed their website of most of their hearing drug related info. The company name doesn't even make sense anymore.

I have to wonder: what possessed them to make that CBS report? What purpose did it serve? The only thing that came out of it was a run on their stock (I didn't hold any, but I have held some in the past). I mentioned this elsewhere and was mocked, but it really seems suspect that they did media before they had legit results backing up their drugs.

 

[Diesel]

Two months ago Frequency Therapeutics did a story with CBS that featured a former trial patient saying they got "84%" of their hearing back. It's now less than 2 months later and they've shut down all of their hearing programs and scrubbed their website of most of their hearing drug related info. The company name doesn't even make sense anymore.

I have to wonder: what possessed them to make that CBS report? What purpose did it serve? The only thing that came out of it was a run on their stock (I didn't hold any, but I have held some in the past). I mentioned this elsewhere and was mocked, but it really seems suspect that they did media before they had legit results backing up their drugs.

CBS ran the report. Not Frequency Therapeutics.

 

[Koz]

Well that's the end of that journey. I came back onto Tinnitus Talk in 2018 after my left ear went from moderate-severe to severe-profound hearing loss, and FX-322 was still in its early days of being announced.

I think the lessons I learnt are as follows:

1. Joining online tinnitus communities as an echo chamber or to read the repeated phrase "I hope" with regards to an unproven unreleased drug is not a wise use of time nor is it a good distraction from tinnitus which is hard enough to distract from as it is, if not practically impossible, so why make that task even more difficult.

2. Real scientists are in a lab. Message board "scientists" read too much research papers and medical journals. The human mind thinks deep and the hypotheses are endless - there are more things to life than reading what TinnitusLord3435's "scientific" conclusion is.

3. People go to extreme lengths to create reason to believe in something that gives them hope for the outcome they desire. There was some serious copium at times.

Something may come for us or it may not. Live life as however much you possibly can (in terms of how much this condition allows you) - with the notion things may improve, it may stay the same or it may become worse. Any breakthroughs in our lifetime to improve the situation by this point, to me, is a bonus, not an expectation. Probably the best way I can keep on going.

I am sorry we go through this. I wish you all the best.

 

[d'Wooluf]

Feeling for all of you who invested so much hope. Cochlear implant for me I think. All the best.

 

[ZFire]

Why do you think that is?

Because no one can ever pick winning stocks consistently unless they're Warren Buffet or Michael Price. It's extremely difficult to do for a sustained period of time (net of fees and taxes). People can score big one year, and then lose all those gains the next year or so. If people do cash out, I guaranteed most of them get sucked back in and reinvest their earnings in another stock because picking a stock that soars is an intense and addictive high.

Same thing applies to market timing. No can ever master it consistently. If it were possible, then everyone would be rich. Even slightly beating the Index year after year is vanishingly difficult. Only a handful of investors have been able to outpace it over time. These people become superstars (Warren Buffet).

My take: Anytime you buy or sell a stock, no matter how careful your research and sound you're thinking, there is someone on the other side of that trade just as convinced you're wrong.

It is why indexing is better. Best to track the performance of a market index instead. You make better returns long term. It's less stressful and costs are low. More than half people who do stock picking or active management will never outperform an index in a 15-year span.

 

[KoolKat]

Good riddance. Joke's on you Frequency Therapeutics. I never believed in this crap anyways I still remember what happened in 2020.

Anyway, cheer up guys! There's more new discoveries on the horizon. We literally just mapped out the inner ear and another group identified a molecular switch for hearing development. it ain't over till the fat lady sings.

We got this.

 

[in_LA]

I'm not going to lie, this seriously bummed me out and I even shed a few tears. And no other pharmas are going to have anything in the pipeline for another 4 or 5 years. I'm just really sad, there is no hope, not only for tinnitus but for hearing restoration in general.

The Dr. Shore device may work to relieve tinnitus but it won't restore hearing.

 

[d'Wooluf]

So, no-one feeling a little angry at this point? Feeling that they've been led down the garden path by one of the greatest hype machines the world has ever seen?

We're close to 20,000 posts by the way.

 

[Chad Lawton]

So, no-one feeling a little angry at this point? Feeling that they've been led down the garden path by one of the greatest hype machines the world has ever seen?

We're close to 20,000 posts by the way.

I for sure am. I was prepared to accept the failure of FX-322 but for the company to decide to scratch the entire FX-345 program in one fell swoop as well, especially when no patients even made it to the 90 day testing window based on their first dosed patient in December, absolutely pisses me off as an investor and a tinnitus sufferer.

You've got Lucchino going on CBS news pumping the company when they had absolutely nothing to base it on.

I don't blame anyone that brings a lawsuit against them now. Management seems more interested in preserving their jobs and milking their half a million a year salaries for a couple more years by cutting half their workforce rather than doing what's best for the company.

 

[Lucifer]

So, no-one feeling a little angry at this point? Feeling that they've been led down the garden path by one of the greatest hype machines the world has ever seen?

We're close to 20,000 posts by the way.

Angry and sad. What's shocking is discontinuing FX-345 as well which I wasn't expecting. FX-322 must have not done too well for them to discontinue FX-345 but they should mention why FX-345 was discontinued.

We won't really know until they release the presentation of the FX-322 Phase 2a trial. Would they even still release it at this stage?

 

[vttbx]

So, no-one feeling a little angry at this point? Feeling that they've been led down the garden path by one of the greatest hype machines the world has ever seen?

We're close to 20,000 posts by the way.

0% anger. 100% despair.

 

[TeslaGuy]

Yes, I was both angry and sad yesterday. I'm already looking into other companies with a cautious mind. I'm still a little sad because it seems nobody will continue Frequency Therapeutics' work. Does it even matter that Astellas owned the rights to develop and market both products outside of US? It seems like not. Maybe they could have run trials in, for example, Europe, but I guess this is truly the end.

 

[ColinUK]

As others have said, I'm angry and sad. This to me is truly shocking that as a business they can act in this way.

I mean I wasn't expecting a cure but I was expecting something. I thought some milestone was going to be reached.

My expectations were based on what was coming out of the company. They knew it did nothing but they pushed out false hope to people suffering for monetary gain.

I lost a few quid. I could have made some if I had sold like I am sure those in the know did, but hindsight is great.

However, what I'm more angered by is the loss of hope, I truly believed in them, their technology with quality people behind it, and their slick press and marketing.

There is no way on earth they should have been releasing the press they were when a couple of months later they shut down the entire hearing program.

I hope they get sued. I hope this is investigated because it's shady as hell.

 

[Nick47]

3. People go to extreme lengths to create reason to believe in something that gives them hope for the outcome they desire. There was some serious copium at times.

@Koz, I agree and it's because of how desperate we feel. I won't give any of these potassium channel modulators 'too much' attention for this reason. Simply because quite a few people reported success with Trobalt (many did not) and therefore a potassium channel modulator will work is an example of faith. Prof. Tzounopoulos has been working on RL-81 for years and it's still not in human trials. The alternative treatments like stem cells are even worse, they do not work.

As for investments, I'm not an expert. If it's about funding research, I think we have a very small pool of 'worthy causes' and biotechs are not in there for our interests. Maybe the Bionics Institute or the Shore Lab can be considered worthy as they have grown some fruit with minimal hype.

I'm even sceptical of some of Dr. De Ridder's research to be honest.

 

[d'Wooluf]

It makes me wonder whether FX-345 was just there to project the idea that they had other options. FX-322 was going nowhere.

Bring on the lawsuits. They deserve what they get.