Follicopeptide: The Hair Peptide Its Maker Discontinued
Published by AmpleLab Research
Follicopeptide is a cosmetic ingredient now appearing in hair density products sold across Europe, marketed under a trademarked name with a reference to "clinical studies including more than 300 participants." What that marketing does not say is that the peptide behind it, FOL-005, was a drug candidate that its original developer spent a decade testing before explicitly discontinuing its development for hair loss, after a corrected re-analysis of its own trial confirmed the first, disappointing result. We went back to the original company's own clinical trial registrations and press releases, including the correction itself, to see what the record actually shows.
There is also a separate, peer-reviewed finding worth knowing about: a paper co-authored by scientists from the original company found that FOL-005, at higher concentrations, can push hair follicles toward premature shedding rather than growth, and proposed the peptide as a treatment for unwanted hair rather than hair loss. This article covers what FOL-005 is, what its trials actually found, that separate finding, and how the same molecule ended up back on shelves as a cosmetic ingredient.
What Is FOL-005
FOL-005 is a synthetic 15-amino-acid peptide fragment derived from osteopontin, a protein researchers at Lund University found could promote hair growth in mouse models while studying an unrelated area, arterial disease. That academic work led to the founding of Follicum AB in Sweden, a company built specifically to develop osteopontin-derived peptides for hair loss, with FOL-005 as its lead candidate and patent protection reported to run to 2040.
Over roughly a decade, Follicum tested FOL-005 in two meaningfully different ways: as an injectable solution delivered directly into the scalp, and later as a topical cream. Both approaches went through controlled, placebo-comparison human trials. Both are covered below, because the results diverge in an important way from how the ingredient is described today.
The Injectable Trial: Placebo Beat Most of the Doses
Follicum's first controlled scalp trial (NCT03467412) ran from February to August 2018: 60 men with androgenic alopecia were randomised to one of four FOL-005 doses or placebo, each receiving intradermal injections three times a week for 12 weeks. This was a genuine dose-ranging study, not a single-arm test, which makes the full result unusually informative.
Mean change from baseline in scalp hair density (hairs/cm²) at 12 weeks, by arm:
Placebo produced a larger mean increase than three of the four active doses. Only the highest dose, 0.100 μg, edged past placebo, by roughly one hair per cm². This is the trial Follicum's October 2018 topline release summarised as an average 7-hair increase at the highest dose that was "borderline statistically significant compared to baseline" (p = 0.078), a description of the 0.100 μg arm against its own starting point, not a claim that FOL-005 beat placebo.
There is no dose-response pattern here that would let a reader infer FOL-005 was doing something placebo was not. The middle dose, 0.050 μg, produced a negative mean change. That does not necessarily mean the peptide caused hair loss at that dose, small trials with high individual variability regularly produce a stray negative arm, but it does mean this dataset cannot be read as evidence of a clean, dose-dependent injectable effect.
The Topical Trial, and a Public Correction
Follicum's larger follow-up moved away from injections toward a cream Follicum planned to sell as a topical drug. A Phase 2a trial (NCT04774874) enrolled 210 men across clinics in Germany, applying FOL-005 cream nightly for four months against a vehicle-only placebo cream. This was the pivotal trial for the topical programme, and its outcome is the one that ended FOL-005's development as a hair loss drug.
At four months, the highest FOL-005 dose produced a mean increase of 6.6 hairs/cm² (p = 0.04 versus baseline), against 5.6 hairs/cm² for placebo (p = 0.01 versus baseline). The difference between the two arms was not statistically significant (p = 0.83). Follicum stated the trial failed to meet its primary endpoint. CEO Kim Arvid Nielsen was quoted directly: "Compared to the results achieved in previous preclinical and clinical studies of FOL-005, the outcome of the Phase IIa study is disappointing."
Seven weeks later, Follicum went further than most companies do after a disappointing readout. The company disclosed that it had found errors in its original performance analysis, commissioned an independent review to check the data, and then published the outcome of that review rather than letting the May release stand as the final word.
After an independent review of the original analysis, Follicum reported that the revised results "show no significant differences compared to what was previously reported." The company confirmed the decision to discontinue development of FOL-005 for hair loss: "Having scrutinized the previously communicated study results, our conclusion remains that the company should not allocate additional resources to the development of FOL-005 for the treatment of hair loss."
This is a documented, company-stated discontinuation, not an inference from a quiet pipeline update. Follicum's own words were that development of FOL-005 for hair loss should not receive further resources, issued after the company had specifically re-checked its own numbers and found the original disappointing result held up. The company said it would continue exploring FOL-005 for other indications while prioritising an unrelated diabetes programme.
A Separate Complication: Evidence It Can Suppress Growth
Independently of the discontinued hair-loss programme, a peer-reviewed paper in the British Journal of Dermatology, co-authored by Follicum scientists alongside academic groups at the Technion, the University of Manchester, and the University of Miami, examined what FOL-005 does to human hair follicles ex vivo and in a humanised mouse model across a range of concentrations.
At concentrations of 60 nanomolar to 3 micromolar, the study found that FOL-005 significantly promoted premature catagen development (the transition into the hair-shedding phase) in cultured human scalp follicles, and reduced expression of FGF7, a growth factor that helps keep follicles in their active growth phase. The authors concluded FOL-005 "deserves systematic clinical testing" as a treatment for hirsutism and hypertrichosis, unwanted hair growth, the functional opposite of what it was originally developed to treat.
This finding does not establish that FOL-005 suppresses growth at the much lower concentrations used in the injectable and topical hair-loss trials, or in a cosmetic formulation applied to the scalp; concentration-dependent, even opposite, effects are a documented feature of several signalling peptides, and this paper does not claim otherwise. What it does establish is that FOL-005's relationship with the hair growth cycle is more complicated than a simple growth-promoting story, and that the same scientists who spent a decade developing it for hair loss also published evidence it can push follicles the other way.
From Discontinued Drug to Cosmetic Ingredient
In September 2021, weeks after the revised results confirming FOL-005's discontinuation as a hair loss drug, Follicum agreed to be acquired by Coegin Pharma AS, a Norwegian-Danish biotech, in a stock-for-stock deal valued at roughly SEK 35.4 million; the merger completed in early 2022. Coegin's core business is an unrelated cancer-drug programme, and FOL-005 came along as an acquired asset rather than a strategic focus.
Rather than continuing FOL-005 as a regulated drug candidate, Coegin repositioned it as a cosmetic ingredient. That is a meaningfully different regulatory category, covered in more detail in our article on what separates a cosmetic from a medicine: a cosmetic ingredient does not have to clear the same drug-approval efficacy requirements, but the finished cosmetic product still has to meet applicable safety requirements and its claims need to be appropriately substantiated. It is a different regulatory standard, not simply a lower version of the drug standard. In May 2024, the ingredient received an INCI (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) name, sh-Oligopeptide-128, the standard naming step for a new cosmetic ingredient, and that September, Coegin launched the trademarked commercial name Follicopeptide alongside a joint development agreement with the hair-care company Scandinavian Biolabs.
It's worth being precise about that last partnership. Scandinavian Biolabs already sells an established hair-growth product line, Bio-Pilixin, built around a different active ingredient, plant-derived exosomes, unrelated to FOL-005 or the peptide science covered in this article. The 2024 agreement was a separate joint development deal for a Follicopeptide-based product, distinct from Bio-Pilixin. As of this writing, AmpleLab could not confirm whether a Follicopeptide-branded product had launched under the Scandinavian Biolabs name specifically; commercial launches of Follicopeptide-containing products that AmpleLab did verify came through other retail partners, including the Swedish men's grooming brand Gents in late 2025 and Coegin's own VEXIENNE line, distributed by the Nordic retailer LYKO. Coegin's own site now describes a Follicopeptide gel serum as launched and states the company is onboarding further commercial partners to bring the ingredient into more markets, so the retail footprint above should be read as a snapshot rather than the full current picture.
What the Current Marketing Says, and Leaves Out
Coegin Pharma's own website describes Follicopeptide as supported by "clinical studies including more than 300 participants with androgenic alopecia," and states the ingredient "resulted in remarkable growth of new hairs" in individuals with a baseline hair density below 255 hairs per cm² after four months. AmpleLab checked this participant figure against the trials above: the injectable dose-ranging study enrolled 60 men and the topical Phase 2a study enrolled 210, which together with earlier smaller studies plausibly reaches "more than 300." The participant count is defensible.
What the site does not mention is what those same studies concluded: that the pivotal 210-man topical trial did not beat placebo by a statistically significant margin, that the result was serious enough to trigger an independent review, and that Follicum itself, in writing, decided against continuing FOL-005's development as a hair loss treatment. "Remarkable growth of new hairs" describes a real, measured increase in hair count in the treated group, but it does not mention that placebo grew hair at a very similar rate in the same trial. A reader encountering Follicopeptide only through current marketing has no way of knowing that history exists.
Common Questions
Is Follicopeptide the same thing as FOL-005?
Yes. Follicopeptide is the commercial trademark and sh-Oligopeptide-128 is the INCI cosmetic-ingredient name; both refer to the same peptide, FOL-005, originally developed by Follicum AB as a prescription hair loss drug candidate.
Did Follicum really discontinue FOL-005 for hair loss?
Yes. Following a May 2021 topline readout that failed to beat placebo in a 210-man Phase 2a topical trial, Follicum commissioned an independent review, confirmed the result in a June 2021 revised release, and stated it should not allocate further resources to developing FOL-005 for hair loss. The company was later acquired by Coegin Pharma, which repositioned the peptide as a cosmetic ingredient rather than continuing it as a drug.
Does FOL-005 suppress hair growth?
At much higher concentrations than those tested in the hair loss trials, a peer-reviewed study co-authored by Follicum's own scientists found FOL-005 promoted premature hair shedding in cultured human follicles and proposed it as a possible treatment for unwanted hair growth instead. This does not establish an effect at cosmetic-use concentrations, but it shows the peptide's biology is more complicated than a simple growth-promoting story.
Is Follicopeptide the same as Scandinavian Biolabs' Bio-Pilixin?
No. Bio-Pilixin is Scandinavian Biolabs' existing product line built around plant-derived exosomes, an unrelated ingredient. Scandinavian Biolabs separately signed a 2024 joint development agreement to work with Coegin on a Follicopeptide-based product, but that is a distinct formula from Bio-Pilixin.
Selected Research
This article is provided for educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice. FOL-005 (Follicopeptide, sh-Oligopeptide-128) is not an approved drug for hair loss in any jurisdiction and its development for that indication was discontinued by its original developer. AmpleLab products do not contain FOL-005 or Follicopeptide and are unrelated to the company or trials discussed here; they are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition.
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