Boryung to debut Korea’s 1st spray-type hair loss treatment next Tuesday

Boryung said it will launch Finjuve Spray (ingredient: finasteride), the first spray-type finasteride hair loss drug in Korea, on March 21.

The launch comes after the company secured the exclusive rights for Finjuve Spray from Almirall, a Spain-based pharmaceutical company, in January last year.

It obtained a license from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in September 2022. Its indication is treating “mild to moderate male alopecia (androgen alopecia) in adult men (18-41 years old).

It is a topical treatment method that is sprayed directly on the scalp of the hair loss area, and its main advantage is that it reduces blood concentration and side effects compared to oral finasteride products, while maintaining equivalent efficacy.

Notably, in a phase 3 clinical trial, Finjuve showed equivalent efficacy compared with 1 mg of oral finasteride in terms of target area hair count (TAHC) after 24 weeks of treatment, with the Finjuve-group showing blood concentration levels one-hundredth of the oral form and a lower incidence of adverse events.

Also, Boryung stressed that Finjuve contains a water-soluble semi-synthetic polymer with high skin compatibility, which allows the main active ingredient, finasteride, to penetrate deep into the dermis of the scalp.

Patients that receive a prescription for Finjuve should apply once daily to the hair loss area and spray one to four times per application. Each application contains 50 µl containing 114 µg of finasteride.

However, patients should not exceed spraying the treatment more than four times per day.

The treatment also increased patient convenience as the treatment comes with a spraying cone that helps patients efficiently apply the drug to the hair loss area only.

“Finjuve spray is equivalent to 1 mg of oral finasteride, which is the largest prescription drug in the Korean male hair loss treatment market, and has improved side effects by reducing blood concentration levels to one-hundredth of the level of oral drugs through formulation improvement,” said Seong Baek-min, Head of Rx Marketing at Boryung.

For men suffering from androgenetic alopecia, Finjuve spray will become an innovative treatment option, he added.

The price of Finjuve will be similar to that of Propecia, MSD's oral finasteride, which costs about 50,000 won ($38.3) to 60,000 won for 30 tablets a month, according to Seong. 

According to UBIST, a drug market research agency, oral finasteride 1mg is the most popular hair loss treatment, with prescription sales reaching 127 billion won ($97.4 million) in 2022, accounting for 83.6 percent of Korea’s oral hair loss treatment market.