Botox Case
|Botox: Almost Trouble-Free New Faces |
|In the movie virgule Face/Off, John Travolta got a new look by exchanging faces with Nicholas Cage. Unfortunately, he got a lot of trouble along with it.|
|Today, John could receive a much less troublesome new look by using Botox, from Allergan Laboratories in Irvine, California. Not only has Botox smoothed |
|the visage of aging actors, it has also come to the rescue of countless comedians and late-night talk-show hosts. Beyond perhaps doing wonders for their |
|appearance, it’s also given them a slew of new jokes as the “next Viagra.” |
|In 1990, Allergan was just a small specialty pharmaceutical firm selling little-known eye and skin drugs and over-the-counter contact lens cleaners. The |
|introduction of Botox wasn’t such a big deal initially. After all, typical of Allergan specialty products, it was just another specialty drug aimed at a |
|small market (treatment of cross-eye) supported by little marketing effort. |
|That was before doctors discovered that injecting Botox around eyes not only eliminated ocular problems, it erased frown lines as well. Once that |
|happened, the buzz was on between doctors and patients. Before long, doctors in most major U.S. cities were giving patients off-label (not approved by |
|the FDA for this use) Botox injections. Even though Allergan could not openly market the product for cosmetic purposes, by 2001 sales of Botox rocketed |
|to $310 million and were growing between 25 percent and 35 percent per year. That translates into over 1.6 million Botox cosmetic procedures performed on|
|roughly 850,000 patients. FDA approval, granted in April 2002, only accelerated this sales bonanza.
|In the movie virgule Face/Off, John Travolta got a new look by exchanging faces with Nicholas Cage. Unfortunately, he got a lot of trouble along with it.|
|Today, John could receive a much less troublesome new look by using Botox, from Allergan Laboratories in Irvine, California. Not only has Botox smoothed |
|the visage of aging actors, it has also come to the rescue of countless comedians and late-night talk-show hosts. Beyond perhaps doing wonders for their |
|appearance, it’s also given them a slew of new jokes as the “next Viagra.” |
|In 1990, Allergan was just a small specialty pharmaceutical firm selling little-known eye and skin drugs and over-the-counter contact lens cleaners. The |
|introduction of Botox wasn’t such a big deal initially. After all, typical of Allergan specialty products, it was just another specialty drug aimed at a |
|small market (treatment of cross-eye) supported by little marketing effort. |
|That was before doctors discovered that injecting Botox around eyes not only eliminated ocular problems, it erased frown lines as well. Once that |
|happened, the buzz was on between doctors and patients. Before long, doctors in most major U.S. cities were giving patients off-label (not approved by |
|the FDA for this use) Botox injections. Even though Allergan could not openly market the product for cosmetic purposes, by 2001 sales of Botox rocketed |
|to $310 million and were growing between 25 percent and 35 percent per year. That translates into over 1.6 million Botox cosmetic procedures performed on|
|roughly 850,000 patients. FDA approval, granted in April 2002, only accelerated this sales bonanza.