New Botox Wrinkle Isn’t Seen Hurting Allergan
By VITA REED
Allergan Inc. isn’t getting frown lines over a new wrinkle-fighting drug.
The Irvine-based drug maker said the new treatment, made by Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp., doesn’t threaten its blockbuster Botox neurotoxin used for cosmetic treatments.
Botox and Medicis’ Restylane drug treat different parts of the face, according to both companies.
“It’s not competitive in any way,” said Stephanie Fagan, an Allergan spokeswoman.
Instead, Fagan said Restylane and other skin fillers coming on the market are complementary to Botox Cosmetic and could help grow the market.
Botox’s primary cosmetic use is for the upper half of the face,it reduces wrinkles around the eyebrow and forehead areas. Restylane, meanwhile, is used to fill in lines on the lower half of the face. It smoothes wrinkles around the nose and mouth and also can be used to make lips fuller.
“My guess is that (Restylane) will help the sales of Botox because it will create a little bit of new energy around restorative or cosmetic dermatology,” said Jonah Shacknai, Medicis’ founder and chief executive.
Shacknai said Medicis has a “friendly, collegial relationship” with Allergan. The two companies sponsor joint drug education programs, he said.
The Food and Drug Administration gave the OK to Medicis to sell Restylane in December. Restylane’s active ingredient is hyaluronic acid, a substance that’s naturally present in the body and is designed not to trigger allergies.
Wall Street analysts who follow the companies don’t see any conflict between Allergan and Medicis.
“They’re complementary (treatments),” said Tim Chiang, a specialty drug analyst with Natexis Bleichroeder Inc., a New York investment banking company. “Restylane is more of a filler-type product. Botox is used for brow furrow.”
Albert Rauch, a pharmaceutical analyst with A.G. Edwards Inc. in St. Louis, said Restylane basically is a niche product and will compete more with collagen treatments from companies such as Inamed Corp. in Santa Barbara. Rauch, who follows Medicis but not Allergan, estimated the market for skin filler products such as Restylane and collagen will be about $100 million this year.
Botox, which has been around for more than 12 years, is a staple for dermatologists and plastic surgeons, Chiang said. Treatments using Botox and Restylane are attractive to plastic surgeons and dermatologists because they draw repeat business.
“It’s all out of pocket. It’s all cash,doctors love this stuff,” Chiang said.
“I have been using hyaluronic acid in various forms before, so now that (Restylane) is FDA-approved, I plan to use it much more widely,” said Dr. Boris Ackerman, a Newport Beach plastic surgeon. “But it’s definitely a complementary product to Botox, not a replacement product.”
Botox is one of Allergan’s key drugs. The neurotoxin, both in its cosmetic and standard therapeutic forms, accounted for $564 million of Allergan’s $1.7 billion sales last year. About 40% of Allergan’s Botox sales came from cosmetic uses of the drug.
Botox Cosmetic, which was approved in 2002, arguably is the most-hyped drug since Viagra.
Allergan has tried to control how the drug is marketed, eschewing the “discount Botox” stereotype.
The company has created the Botox Cosmetic Physician Network, a group of several thousand doctors who work with the drug maker on training and marketing issues as part of its strategy.
