Hair Cloning: Where the Science Stands and When It Might Be Available
Last reviewed on 12 July 2026. We review our treatment guides every six months to keep them accurate.
Hair cloning is one of the most searched ideas in hair restoration, and one of the most misunderstood. The promise is simple and genuinely radical. Instead of moving a person's existing hairs around, as a transplant does, scientists would take a small sample of your own hair-follicle cells, multiply them in a laboratory and use them to grow brand new follicles. If it worked, a shortage of donor hair would no longer decide who could be treated. This guide sets out where the science actually stands, and answers the question most people arrive with: when will hair cloning be available?
The honest answer first. As of this review, hair cloning is not commercially available anywhere in the world, including the UK. No regulator has approved it as a treatment, and any clinic claiming to sell a finished hair cloning procedure today should be treated with caution. Serious research is underway and there has been real progress, but the timelines you read online are speculative and have repeatedly slipped. Realistic availability is measured in years, not months, and any specific date is a guess. Always speak to a qualified professional about the options that exist now.
For reliable, regularly updated information on the causes of hair loss and the treatments available on the NHS and privately, the NHS hair loss page is a sensible starting point between updates to this guide.
One quick clarification, because it confuses a lot of searches. Hair cloning here means regrowing your own hair by multiplying your follicle cells. It has nothing to do with cloning a whole person from a strand of hair, which is science fiction. The word cloning simply refers to multiplying cells in the lab.
What is hair cloning?
Hair cloning, also called hair multiplication, hair replication, follicle neogenesis or hair follicle regeneration, is the idea of building brand new hair follicles from a person's own cells. In most approaches the cells of interest are dermal papilla cells, the specialised cells at the base of the follicle that instruct it to grow. The plan is to take a small sample, multiply those cells in the laboratory, then reintroduce them into the scalp to rejuvenate failing follicles and, ultimately, to grow new hairs where none remain.
It has been proposed for decades as the ultimate answer to hair loss, because in theory it removes the single biggest limit on what surgery can achieve: the amount of donor hair a person has. In practice, turning that idea into a safe, reliable treatment has proved far harder than it sounds.
How is hair cloning different from a hair transplant?
A hair transplant does not create any new hair. It relocates existing follicles, usually from the back and sides of the scalp, into thinning or bald areas. The technique is effective and well established, but it cannot increase the total number of hairs on your head, so people with limited donor hair can only be helped so far. This is why the phrase clone hair transplant is a little misleading: today's transplants move hair, they do not clone it.
Hair cloning aims to do the thing a transplant cannot: generate genuinely new follicles. If it were ever perfected, it could in principle help people who do not have enough donor hair for surgery. That is the prize, and it is why the field attracts so much attention.
Why hair cloning is so hard
The central problem is a stubborn one. When dermal papilla cells are grown and multiplied in a conventional flat, two-dimensional laboratory culture, they tend to lose their hair-inducing ability, known as their trichogenic capacity. In other words, the very act of multiplying enough cells to be useful can strip them of the property that makes them worth multiplying. One line of research explores delivering the dermal papilla's growth signals using exosome therapy rather than transplanting the cells themselves. A 2024 review in the journal Regenerative Therapy describes this loss of trichogenic capacity in cultured cells as one of the main obstacles still facing the field.
Even when researchers can coax cells to form the beginnings of a follicle, getting new follicles that are correctly oriented, pigmented and able to cycle through the normal phases of growth, rest and shedding has been the sticking point. It is now generally accepted that some form of follicle rudiment probably needs to be built before implantation, rather than simply injecting loose cells. HairClone, a UK company working in the area, puts it plainly on its own website: cultured follicle cells rapidly lose their functionality, and follicle neogenesis at a clinically useful scale still faces considerable technical, regulatory and financial hurdles.
The current state of hair cloning research
Several companies and university groups are working on hair cloning technology, and most are still at a preclinical or very early clinical stage. Because hair cloning news moves quickly, treat any single headline, including this section, as a snapshot rather than the final word. The positions below are the companies' and researchers' own reported claims, not independent proof, and they change often.
Stemson Therapeutics (United States). Stemson is pursuing induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, in which ordinary adult cells are reprogrammed and then guided to become hair-follicle cells. The 2024 review noted above describes this work as promising but preclinical, with iPSC-derived cells tested by grafting into mice rather than in people. It is early-stage science, not a treatment you can book.
dNovo (United States). dNovo is a small biotech founded on direct cellular reprogramming, a method for converting a patient's own cells into hair stem cells. It has reported growing human hair on a mouse, which is an early laboratory result rather than evidence of a working human therapy.
RIKEN and OrganTech (Japan). In February 2026 the Japanese research institute RIKEN and the startup OrganTech reported that they had recreated the complete hair-growth cycle in mice, after identifying a previously unrecognised supporting cell type in the follicle. The work, published in a peer-reviewed journal, is a genuine scientific step, but it is animal research. The team itself framed it as a possible basis for a future therapy, not a finished one.
Epibiotech (South Korea). Epibiotech is developing EPI-001, an autologous dermal papilla cell therapy. According to the company, it was approved by Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for an early-stage Phase 1/2a clinical trial in late 2023. That places it among the closer efforts to actual human testing, though published results are not yet available.
Is there anything happening in the UK?
The main UK name in this space is HairClone. It has launched what it describes as the world's first follicle banking service, where a patient's follicles are collected and cryogenically stored for possible future use, and it is developing a dermal papilla cell therapy intended to rejuvenate miniaturising follicles. HairClone states that it has built a cell manufacturing facility and has begun early, experimental treatment testing abroad. This remains investigational rather than an approved treatment, and we mention it here for information, not as an endorsement. Anyone considering it should discuss it carefully with a qualified clinician first.
When will hair cloning be available?
This is the question everyone asks, so here is a straight answer. No hair cloning treatment is approved or on sale anywhere as of this review, and there is no confirmed date for one. Some groups are at or approaching early human trials, while others remain in animal studies, so meaningful human trials for hair cloning are only just beginning in places, not concluding.
Even in the best case, a therapy has to pass early-stage trials, then larger trials for safety and effectiveness, then regulatory review, before it can reach clinics. Each stage takes time, and hair cloning has a long history of predicted arrival dates that came and went. The realistic picture is years of further work, not a treatment arriving within months, and we would rather tell you that plainly than repeat an optimistic year that may slip again. We update this guide as the position changes.
What is actually available now
While hair cloning is still being worked out in the laboratory, there are established options with real evidence behind them. If hair loss is affecting you now, these are worth discussing with a professional rather than waiting for a technology that is not ready.
Hair transplant surgery. A hair transplant relocates your own follicles into thinning areas. Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE) is a widely used, minimally invasive technique. It cannot create new hair, but for suitable candidates it produces natural, permanent results.
Evidence-based medicines. For male pattern hair loss, minoxidil and finasteride have the strongest track record. Whether either is right for you, and at what dose, is a decision for a clinician who can weigh the benefits and side effects for your situation.
If you are interested in what is coming next, other genuinely investigational treatments are further along than hair cloning, such as the experimental topical drug covered in our PP405 guide. None of these is a substitute for a proper assessment. A qualified trichologist or surgeon can look at your hair loss, explain the cause, and set out the options that make sense for you today.
Frequently asked questions
When will hair cloning be available?
There is no confirmed date. As of this review, hair cloning is not approved or commercially available anywhere. Research is progressing, with some groups at or near early human trials, but a marketable treatment still has to clear trials and regulatory review, which takes years. Any specific year you see quoted is speculation, and such predictions have slipped many times before.
Is hair cloning available in the UK?
Not as an approved treatment. The main UK company in the field, HairClone, offers follicle banking (collecting and storing your follicles) and is developing an investigational dermal papilla cell therapy, but this is experimental and not a licensed procedure. If someone offers to sell you a finished hair cloning treatment in the UK today, be very cautious.
Are there human trials for hair cloning?
Early human trials are beginning in a few places. Epibiotech in South Korea, for example, reports regulatory approval for an early-phase trial of its dermal papilla cell therapy. Much of the other work, including well-known efforts in the United States and Japan, is still at the animal or laboratory stage. So human trials exist, but they are early and limited, not close to producing a routine treatment.
How is hair cloning different from a hair transplant?
A hair transplant moves your existing follicles from one part of the scalp to another, so it cannot increase your total number of hairs. Hair cloning aims to multiply follicle cells in the lab and grow new follicles, which would remove the donor-hair limit that restricts surgery. Transplants are available and proven now; cloning is not yet a treatment.
Can hair follicles really be cloned?
In the laboratory, researchers can multiply follicle cells and, in animals, grow new follicles, so the basic biology is real. The unsolved challenge is doing it reliably in humans: cultured cells tend to lose their hair-inducing ability when multiplied, and building follicles that are properly oriented and able to cycle normally is difficult. Cloning hair follicles at a clinical scale has not yet been achieved as a proven treatment.
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