In the Pipeline for 2012
In the Botox universe, the introduction of Dysport was greeted with a lot of hope that the competition between Dysport and Botox would bring the prices down a bit.
It was a huge disappointment, because Dysport (Medicis) was priced almost the same as Botox. And the conversion between the Botox units or volume and the Dysport units or volume was annoying for many doctors. The bottom line was there wasn’t much benefit for either patients or doctors.
Now Merz (a German company) is introducing Xeomin in the U.S. This product is already available in many other parts of the world. Since they are just beginning to educate doctors here about it, it remains to be seen whether it will have some of the same issues that Dysport did.
I, and two other collegues in my office, will be attending the IMCAS in Paris in two weeks. IMCAS is the main European Dermatology/Plastic Surgery/Anti-Aging conference there. Europe does not have the equivalent of our federal FDA, so new skin care treatments tend to get launched in Europe before the U.S. I’ll be gathering a lot of information about Xeomin and many other products and devices that are being used primarily in Europe now.
Dr. Irwin
See Dr. Irwin’s answer to a question from a SkinTour user about Melasma and Asian Skin.