Frequency posted this on their Twitter - a discussion on what the future of hearing loss treatment could look like and how it might benefit patients, with Carl LeBel. This was from the virtual Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) convention earlier this summer.
I think that it can benefit people positively and I also actually think that it is a positive sign observing Frequency Therapeutics engage with many stakeholders. Still I feel that just like I explain below why doctors might be initially unwilling to treat patients, I also feel that there might be the same sort of apathy also from doctors.
I really hope that FX-322 is the breakthrough they need to give ENTs a reason to actually focus more on the ear, and treat people.
If it is successful (and I think it will be successful), I believe that there will still be problems with convincing many ENTs to treat patients with FX-322 initially. I reckon that there will be a mixture of skepticism and refusal from some. Others however will obviously be willing to treat.
The most likely obstacle patients may face is finding a doctor who would be willing to work with them for the duration of their course of treatment. FX-322 is inevitably going to be a treatment that requires a lot of investigatory and also trial work to get the treatment right, especially in the initial stages. Thus this will not be something that many doctors will want to take on because it will be time consuming and not necessarily simple for them like deciding to do ear tubes. Furthermore it may be less financially beneficial for them when compared to other treatment options they could provide.
Thus I believe that until doctors either
- recognise the benefit in providing FX-322 treatment to people
or
- there are improvements in the ease of delivering FX-322 to patients and these improvements clearly result in the treatment becoming simpler to administer to people
There will be quite a lot of apathy for doctors to administer FX-322 or even learn about it so they can actually administer it.
For example doctors in Australia consistently refuse or resist to learn new procedures until there is a demonstrable benefit to them or some other reason for doing so. I assume this happens in other places also. As a result I feel that until Frequency Therapeutics can lay the ground work and actually convince doctors to treat using FX-322 there will be a barrier for patients to be able to obtain treatment.