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Potential New Cure Found For Baldness (bbc.com)
A potential new cure for baldness has been discovered using a drug originally intended to treat osteoporosis. BBC reports: Researchers found the drug had a dramatic effect on hair follicles in the lab, stimulating them to grow. It contains a compound which targets a protein that acts as a brake on hair growth and plays a role in baldness. Project leader Dr Nathan Hawkshaw told the BBC a clinical trial would be needed to see if the treatment was effective and safe in people. Only two drugs are currently available to treat balding (androgenetic alopecia): minoxidil, for men and women, and finasteride, for men only. Neither is available on the NHS, the national healthcare system for England, and both have side-effects and are not always very effective, so patients often resort to hair transplantation surgery instead.
Article says it is "cyclosporine A" which is designed to prevent your body from attacking transplanted organs. That is a pretty serious drug, suppressing your immune system to the point that it mostly ignores giant blobs of foreign meat in your body.
From the article:
But because of its side effects, CsA was unsuitable as a baldness treatment.
The team went on to look for another agent that targeted SFRP1 and found that WAY-316606 was even better at suppressing the protein.
Also, perhaps it's applied topically rather than ingested?