Competition has arrived for Irvine-based Allergan Inc.? blockbuster wrinkle-remover Botox, but Chief Executive David Pyott plans few changes in his marketing of the drug.
At the end of April, Allergan got word that it? going to have its first domestic competitor for Botox Cosmetic when the Food and Drug Administration cleared Dysport for cosmetic and medical uses.
Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp. of Scottsdale, which holds marketing rights for the cosmetic version of Dysport, is planning to launch the drug within two months.
Ipsen SA, a French drug maker, holds the rights to medical uses of Dysport and will launch it in the second half of this year to treat pain from abnormally positioned heads and necks.
Allergan?hich has shared the European market with Dysport for years?s ready for the competition here, according to Pyott.
?t? not a new product because we?e been competing against them, particularly in Europe, for some 17 years now,?Pyott said. ?e?e well prepared. We?e been waiting for this for a long time.?
Botox, Dysport and a pair of smaller rivals are made from a purified form of a toxin related to botulism, a type of food poisoning.
Allergan has roughly 83% of the global market for drugs based on the botulinum toxin, with Botox dominating Dysport and four other products, according to Pyott.
?f you look overseas, we have well over an 80% market share, and, in those markets where there? reliable data, normally the zenith that Dysport ever reaches is about 20% market share,?he said.
Allergan plans to continue promoting Botox Cosmetic as a premium brand, Pyott said.
Analysts have said that Botox, which Allergan? projected to sell $1.15 billion to $1.19 billion of in 2009, will lose some market share to Dysport.
?he first mover tends to keep two-thirds of the business, but it? not uncommon for the second player to pick up a third,?said Scott Henry, an analyst who follows Medicis for Roth Capital Partners LLC in Newport Beach.
?or Medicis, that? a pretty good number. If you started from zero and you can get 30% of the market, you?e going to have something that? going to sell $100 million to $150 million?a year, Henry said.
Dysport and Botox both soften wrinkles. But they?e made in different ways.
Dysport? primary difference from Botox Cosmetic is how its molecule is structured, said Mark Prygocki, Medicis?chief operating officer.
?t? distinguished because of the way they measure units,?he said. ?or example, one Botox unit does not equal one Dysport unit.?
Dysport could offer savings to customers who are shying away from Botox as they pull back on cosmetic procedures during the recession. Some Wall Street analysts have predicted that that Dysport will be priced roughly 20% lower than Botox Cosmetic.
Prygocki wouldn? confirm any specific figure and said Medicis won? discuss pricing until Dysport? introduced.
Allergan is realistic about losing some customers, Pyott said.
?e have to lose some market share, that? just inevitable,?he said.
Allergan? job will be ?o limit this as far as possible,?Pyott said.
The company declined to comment on whether it? starting to see a rebound in spending on cosmetic procedures.
Allergan didn? raise Botox prices this year, according to Pyott. On average the company has increased Botox? price by 3.7% a year for the past 10 years.
Company representatives ?ave been very confident, perhaps overconfident, that they have a better product and people will continue to use it despite the pricing,?said Brent Moelleken, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who uses Botox and plans to use Dysport.
?he two are very different,?he said. ?ysport has a bigger volume of distribution?t spreads more?nd Botox is more focused, so they will work very differently.?
Moelleken? office charges $400 to $1,000 for Botox treatments, depending upon the areas that are injected. He said a 20% discount for Dysport ?ounds about right.?
Other doctors are more wary.
?ou?e not going to see doctors who have developed an enormous comfort level with Botox just change over,?said August Accetta, a Huntington Beach cosmetic surgeon. ?e were all taught in medical school that botulinum toxin was a terrible thing, (so) it took years to develop the comfort to really be able to promote Botox. We?e going to have the same anxiety and careful consideration for this new drug.?
Allergan once briefly had rights to Dysport from its $3 billion buy of Santa Barbara-based Inamed Corp. in 2006. It relinquished them to Ipsen to satisfy antitrust concerns.
Ipsen later sold the cosmetic rights for Dysport to Medicis.
