This helmet saves chemo patients from hair loss

The story: Luminate’s new Lily helmet helps chemo patients prevent associated hair loss. The company is currently enrolling for multi-center trials and aiming for FDA clearance, enabled by a new $15 million funding round.

How a hair loss helmet works: First, it’s important to understand why side effects like hair loss often accompany chemotherapy. The drugs used to stop proliferating cancer cells also affect other replicating cells—like those in the GI tract and hair follicles.

• The Lily helmet works by applying even pressure across the scalp, blocking off blood flow through capillaries connecting to the hair follicles, keeping the drugs from reaching these endpoints.
• The Luminate team has reported the helmet has helped 3 out of 4 people keep their hair through chemotherapy in their first product tests.
• The device works similarly to the cold cap, a common tool used by chemo patients to prevent hair loss during certain kinds of chemo treatments. These caps work by temporarily constricting blood flow to the hair follicles via temperature instead of pressure.

Cancer’s hair loss cost: Luminate’s founders were inspired to create the Lily helmet when they were surprised to hear how much hair loss dominated conversations about the worst parts of cancer care. 

• Beyond the stigma resulting from hair loss, especially for many female patients, dealing with chemo-associated hair loss can be very expensive.
• Aside from adding cold capping to one’s chemo regimen, most chemo patients who want to manage their hair loss do so by spending hundreds—and even thousands—of dollars on wigs.
• The team plans to cap the price for the Lily helmet at around $1500 and hopes to achieve payer contracts after FDA clearance, keeping the cost of helping patients keep their own hair low.

Luminate’s future vision: The startup is building out a suite of products to bring cancer care to the home.

• Its other key product is the Lilac gloves and boots set, which addresses chemo-induced neuropathy in the extremities like a hyper-specialized compression sock.
• The team wondered why chemo can’t happen at home, making patients more comfortable and cutting down on the time suck of cancer treatment? The answer is often that cancer centers have specialized equipment. Luminate is trying to change that.

Our take: We’re excited by Luminate’s vision of more accessible and comfortable cancer care. This is something all patients deserve, especially when dealing with an already brutal treatment like chemotherapy. We’ll be interested to see the outcomes of the company’s product trials. We’re especially interested to see how they compare to existing devices like cold caps, which are readily available for many chemo patients, but which also vary in their effectiveness and come with the added cost of spending more time at chemotherapy infusions to use the devices.