Word: allergan
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...steamy July morning in New York City last summer, Allergan, maker of Botox, unveiled the latest weapon in its aesthetic arsenal, Juvéderm. The new wrinkle filler--made from hyaluronic acid, a naturally occurring sugar in the skin that helps it hold moisture--had just got the green light from the FDA for distribution in the U.S. Champagne corks popped and a curtain parted to reveal a glamorous and wrinkle-free blond, seen minutes before on a video with a face full of creases and frowns. "This is the new generation of dermal fillers," gushed Caroline Van Hove, director...
...Allergan, a specialty pharmaceutical outfit with sales of $2.9 billion, will put the same marketing muscle behind Juvéderm that made Botox a household name. There are some potential wrinkles in that plan, though. Botox, a facial-muscle relaxant that was used by some 3.5 million people last year, had the market to itself; Juvéderm has a competitor before it's even out of the box: Restylane, the current best-selling hyaluronic-acid filler, made by Medicis, a $344 million dermatological company based in Scottsdale, Ariz. And Medicis' Perlane, a more robust version of Restylane, is expected...
Make no mistake about it, a war on wrinkles is under way. And Medicis and Allergan aren't the only ones battling for the $14 billion Americans will spend this year to rejuvenate their aging faces. The overall aesthetics market, including laser devices and breast implants, is only going to keep growing, at a 25% annual clip, according to Allergan's calculations. Says Allergan chairman and CEO David Pyott: "Everyone is trying to work out how to play in the game." And he's right. Dermatologists, cosmetics giants, pharmaceutical companies, medical-device makers and spas are all trying...
Little wonder, then, that Allergan and Medicis are aiming new products at each others' best sellers. The battle started last spring when Medicis was set to pay $3.2 billion for Inamed, a medical aesthetics firm with a promising product pipeline that included potential Restylane competitor Juvéderm and the U.S. rights to distribute Dysport (a Botox-like muscle relaxant that will be marketed here as Reloxin). Weeks before the deal was to close, Allergan, based in Irvine, Calif., swooped in and outbid Medicis by $200 million and also had to fork over $90 million to Medicis as a termination...
...Allergan's triumph was short-lived, though. The Federal Trade Commission challenged the company's Botox monopoly and ruled that it couldn't retain Reloxin. Guess who got the spoils? Medicis. "We lost the battle but got the product we wanted anyway," says Manny Kapur, Medicis' business director in Canada. "And we got to buy it with their money," adds Jonah Shacknai, chairman and CEO of Medicis...