Dr. Dhaval Bhanusali Treats Scar And Hair Loss Patients With Compassion And Gently-Priced Products

It was the slap heard around the world.

Will Smith’s defense at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony, of his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, was a knee-jerk reaction to her suffering from alopecia areata we learned as the topic trended on social media, becoming water cooler fodder about the rich and fabulous. Dr. Dhaval Bhanusali, knows all about the emotional toll hair loss takes on men and women, and suggested she could have used a hug instead.

The celebrity dermatologist has built a growing business based on the sale of compound medications to treat hair loss and other ailments. “I have a tech background, so we built a platform, HairStim Labs, around providing access to these compound medications,” Dr. Bhanusali said. “Its grown to almost 30,000 patients and 2,600 proscribers who use it as a kind of a de facto way of treating hair loss. It’s all working organically.”

That discovery led to a bigger project, Skin Medicinals, designed to combat the astronomical price of drugs. “About three years ago, drug prices began skyrocketing, and we started seeing articles in the press about the government suing pharmaceutical companies for price-fixing,” Dr. Bhanusali said. “Nothing came of the lawsuits, and prices have remained elevated ever since.”

For example, a drug that cost $20, climbed to $400, Dr. Bhanusali said, adding that all of his patients experienced sticker shock with their meds. “When talking to colleagues, it was apparent that this was a much larger problem that was somewhat universal,” he said. “We built a similar platform to allow for compounding ingredients that dermatologists now use for everything, including acne, psoriasis, warts, rosacea and even aging.”

The platform is now used by over 8,300 dermatology providers, and Dr. Bhanusali’s practice just hit its 350,000th patient. That’s similar numbers to Hims/Roman and Thirty Madison, which have hundreds of employees. And while pharmaceutical companies have billion dollar businesses and thousands of employees, Dr. Bhanusali has 6 on his staff in total. Both e-commerce sites have grown organically with little or no advertising; the growth has been mostly through word of mouth.

Dr. Bhanusali said that when his mom was going through chemotherapy treatments for cancer, all her hair fell out and the only thing she worried about was whether it would grow back again. “As they say, look good, feel good, and it was certainly a learning experience for me, as to how much hair loss can emotionally challenge someone,” he said.

“[Will Smith’s slap and Jada’s alopecia,] will create a lot of awareness, given that there’s a lot of interest in hair loss and mental health,” Bhanusali said. “This is something I see every day in my practice. Maybe the public will be more empathetic to those who suffer from the affliction.”

Dr. Bhanusali said his office is a little different than traditional dermatologist digs. “When you walk in I have this crazy Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory vibe. We have robots walking around. You’ll see different studies going on, machine learning developments, skin care developments, a little of everything. I also treat a lot of people who’ve had terrible accidents. Admittedly, we have a pretty heavy celebrity patient base. I do a lot of scar work and a lot of hair loss. The emotional burden of both is the same.

“It’s kind of trying to solve the unsolvable,” Dr.Bhanusali added. “With scars, for example, it’s not uncommon for patients to have been seen by 10 doctors before they come to see me. I enjoy doing pro bono work.”

Last summer, one of his scar cases went viral when a little boy named Bridger Walker saved his sister’s life, protecting her from a dog attack. “We treated him initially and the rest of the treatments I coordinated with a doctor closer to his home in Wyoming,” Dr. Bhanusali said. “Typically, medical experts say you should wait a year to a year and a half to treat a patient with a scar. So everybody told Bridger’s family to wait to treat him, but you can’t have a five-year-old, or six-year-old with wounds on his cheeks and the inability to smile. It’s impossible.”

Dr. Bhanusali has lectured on scar treatment options and the importance of treating scars sooner rather than later to get the best results. In a world full of marketing and advertising, Dr. Bhanusali follows the science. “Early in my career, I had a lot of cases of patients losing their hair,” he said. “Most of the options they tried didn’t work or were too expensive over-the-counter.”

Dr. Bhanusali said he had a number of patients who had poor results with over-the-counter topical hair loss remedies and even some standard prescription options. “They tried traditional hair loss treatments, and failed, so we started looking at compounding different formulations for them, and all of a sudden, we started seeing them grow significant amounts of hair. It was one of those things where you see the first indication of something promising.”

His business was born with the creation of the e-commerce site for compounds. “I feel like this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redefine health care,” Dr. Bhanusali said. “The digitization of medicine continues due to the pandemic. We’ve been forced to look at how people consume health and knowledge. For medication, there’s hopefully a lot more transparency when it comes to prices.”

Dr. Bhanusali cited an example of a medication for a common rash called intertrigo. It was originally about $200, then it became $10,000 when it was acquired by a different pharmaceutical company. “When access became an issue, we had a compounded formula with many of the ingredients on our web site for about $45,” he said. “Our steroid medications are about $20 and our retonoids are about $30 (something that can easily be hundreds of dollars if a branded version).

“As with any project, there needs to be a sense of good,” Dr. Bhanusali said. “With Skin Medicinals, we’ve donated over $200,000 to different initiatives that support the field of dermatology and our patients.”