Bump! Now I'm about to be a junior in college.
Frequency Therapeutics showed promising results in their FX-322 (hair cell regeneration) phase 1/2 trial with a few participants gaining large word score improvements and 10 dB increases at 8 kHz on their audiograms. There is anecdotal evidence that some patients reported a decrease in their tinnitus. They are now on phase 2a trials with results to include audiograms up to 16 kHz to check for hidden hearing loss and THI scores to quantify tinnitus. Results will be available mid summer next year.
Lenire seems like it is mostly a dud, however bimodal neuromodulation can probably still be improved upon and eventually provide tinnitus relief. There is at least one person here whose tinnitus became non-existent after using a similar neuromodulation device by another university.
Otonomy is working on drugs to cure:
- OTO-313 - Tinnitus. Finished phase 1/2 with results that 57% of the drug group had improved tinnitus. However, there is also someone here who was in the trial and got worse tinnitus and this drug seems mainly for acute tinnitus (less than 6 months?), although it could work for severe.
- OTO-413 - Synaptopathy. Drug used to regenerate/repair ribbon synapses, which helps hearing loss (word-in-noise scores) and could also help with tinnitus. Finishing phase 1/2 and will have results in September.
- OTO-6XX - Hair cells. Like FX-322 but still in very early stages. Aims to regenerate hair cells.
Hough Ear Institute pill is still collecting funds for their drug study. Hard to tell what's going on with them anymore. Nothing yet to show for. Also think it will only work in acute stages.
Gateway Biotechnology is creating drugs to combat hearing loss and tinnitus. GW-201, Tetrandrine, is specifically for tinnitus. Although this may also only work in acute stages.
Pipeline Therapeutics is creating drugs for hearing loss. PIPE-505 just started their phase 1/2a trial for synaptopathy. I personally like the kinds of information they are going to gather from this trial.
XEN-1101 is in phase 2b with results expected in mid 2021. Not sure if this is a reformulation of Trobalt (which helped some people with tinnitus) or something that works similarly, but I think it's supposed to be more potent/effective with a better side effect profile.
Professor Thanos Tzounopoulos is still working on his tinnitus drug RL-81, which may eventually be seen in the next decade. It's supposedly 15 times more potent than Trobalt with a much improved side effect profile.
Elon Musk's Neuralink may be a cure for tinnitus, while allowing you to turn off your lights with your brain. Similar to DBS. This could be available sometime in the next decade or so, if brain implants are your thing. New press release this Friday, August the 28th.
There are some other things, but these are the ones I found interesting. I'd say check back in mid 2021 and there should be more results.