Regenerative Hearing Drug Shows Promise

For years, thousands of people have sought a cure to one of the most common afflictions among Americans: hearing loss. While we at The Hearing Associates of Las Vegas do our best to identify and treat hearing loss with services such as hearing evaluations, hearing aid fittings, and tinnitus treatments, it is important for us to be aware of what others are doing in our field.

Recently, Frequency Therapeutics has been seeing success with their hearing loss treatment trials, with some patients showing improvements after just a few months. These results were sustained for a period of up to 21 months.

This is a major breakthrough for people suffering from hearing loss everywhere. Now, finally, there is definitely hope that individuals suffering from this affliction can gain some ground towards recovery. For the first time, the results of a study have shown statistically significant improvements in word recognition scores in patients with chronic moderate to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss.

The patients in this trial received a single intratympanic dose of the drug (FX-322) in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, and were evaluated for 90 days. The patients were later tested between 13 and 21 months after the initial dosing, with patients showing sustained improvements in measures of speech intelligibility. Also, some patients had increased audibility thresholds at higher frequencies.

“Historically, patients with acquired chronic {sensorineural hearing loss} do not regain their lost hearing. The FX-322 Phase 1/2 study has provided promising evidence of clinically meaningful improvements in word recognition, and based on the recent longer-term follow-up data, we believe that this benefit may be sustained for many months following a single dose of this investigational treatment,” said Dr. King, co-founder of the Ear Medical Group in San Antonio.

“It is exciting to see sustained clinical benefits in these individuals, and while still early, also to see the potential for a therapeutic that may provide sustained speech intelligibility improvement, which remains an unmet need for hearing loss patients.”

Sensorineural hearing loss affects more than 40 million people alone in the US and hundreds of millions of people globally. It is the cause of more than 90 percent of all hearing loss. Sensorineural hearing loss usually results from damage to the hair cells of the inner ear that send signals to the brain. These auditory sensory hair cells may be lost due to chronic noise exposure, aging, certain viral infections or exposure to drugs that are toxic to the ear.

The drug, FX-322, works to activate progenitor cells (pre-programmed stem cells) and regenerate auditory hair cells in the inner ear to restore hearing function.

However, Frequency Therapeutics’ study is not yet finished. They are looking to resume clinical trials and are expected to report their finding in Q2 of 2021. The Hearing Associates of Las Vegas and the rest of the hearing industry is excited to see what this finding will be in 2021. In the meantime, coming in for a hearing evaluation by an Audiologist if you or someone you know is experiencing difficulty hearing, ringing in the ears, or trouble understanding conversation from those around you.