A team of scientists led by a Japanese pharmaceutical startup has been working on a drug to stimulate the growth of new teeth in what would be a world-first, aiming to put it on the market by around 2030.

Toregem Biopharma, funded by Kyoto University, is expected to begin clinical trials on healthy adults in around July 2024 to confirm the drug’s safety, after the team succeeded in growing new teeth in mice in 2018.

Most people have “tooth buds” that have the potential to become a new tooth, in addition to baby and permanent teeth, although the buds usually do not develop and subsequently disappear.