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Allergan Takes Aim at Share of $1 Billion Hair-Loss Market

Irvine-based Allergan Inc. is aiming for a market worth about $1 billion a year in sales as it moves along with the development of its Latisse eyelash grower as a treatment for hair loss.

Latisse is now in the second phase of clinical testing for baldness, Chief Executive David Pyott said last week in an interview with Bloomberg.

Researchers are testing Latisse versus a placebo for both men and women. The Food and Drug Administration generally requires three stages of trials before approving a drug.

More data from tests in both men and women could come by mid-2012, Pyott said in other published re-ports.

“If it works on male and female baldness, that’s a big deal,” Pyott said.

Latisse was originally ap-proved for eyelashes in 2008. It came about after researchers found that bimatoprost, an active ingredient in Allergan’s Lumigan glaucoma treatment, grew eyelashes as a side effect.

Sales Outlook

If Latisse is approved for hair loss, it holds the potential to add $200 million to $500 million in annual sales for Allergan by 2020, Aaron Gal, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York, told Bloom-berg.

Allergan expects $100 million in sales of Latisse for eyelashes this year. The drug accounted for $82 million of the company’s total revenue of $4.9 billion last year.

“It will grow hair from the existing follicle, and help you maintain the hair you’ve got,” Gal said.

Gal said it was clear that Latisse “works in principle, because we know it grows eyebrows and grows lashes.”

The drug is intended to work similarly to Rogaine, the market leader among hair-loss drugs with prescription and over-the-counter versions marketed by Johnson & Johnson of New Brunswick, N.J.

Longtime Strategy

If Latisse is successfully developed for hair loss, it would be another example of Allergan’s longtime strategy of finding alternate uses for core drugs.

Allergan has managed that with Botox, its flagship neurotoxin.

Within the last year, Allergan received a pair of new approvals for the drug, which was introduced in the late 1970s and was approved as a cosmetic wrinkle-smoother in 2002.

The FDA cleared Botox for treating nerve-affected urinary incontinence in August. Last October, regulators approved Botox for treating se-vere migraine head-aches.

Allergan has said it expects full-year Botox sales of between $1.55 billion to $1.59 billion.

Company officials have spoken highly of Latisse and what it could mean for Allergan. Back when the drug first came out, Pyott said he expected it could do well because it was relatively inexpensive.

Allergan estimates an average cost per patient at $120 for Latisse eyelash treatments. That compares to $450 to $500 for Botox injections for treating wrinkles, and $600 or more for injections of Juvéderm, a lower-face wrinkle filler.

Latisse, whose celebrity endorsers have included actresses Claire Danes and Brooke Shields, is also seen as a way to draw younger customers to Allergan, according to Pyott.

“This is a great traffic builder” for cosmetic surgeons, he said.

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