Starting in May of 2009, a battle broke out between two different kinds of wrinkle smoothing injections. Botox, a product by Allergan which has been the market standard for years, faces a new competitor. This new competitor is Dysport, by Medicis. The facial injection wrinkle treatment industry is a multi-billion dollar section of the market that has traditionally been most heavily driven by Botox. While the economic crash did have an effect on many of the more costlier cosmetic options, it did not seem to have any effect on the sales of Botox. Botox, of course, is not the only facial injection on the market. It was, however, the only muscle paralyzing injection available, with all of the other options working to rejuvenate the skin rather than relax the muscles. Dysport has changed that dynamic. This puts Allergan and Medicis on more equal footing, both companies now offering both a neurotoxin and a dermal filler.
Allergan has responded to this change in the market by creating the “Botox Brilliant Distinctions” program. This program allows customers who purchase treatments from Allergan to redeem points which can be used on other Allergan treatments. Medicis, on the other hand, has created the “Dysport ‘Love it or Leave it Challenge.'” This option allows new customers to try out Dysport and receive a seventy five dollar rebate. They can then decide how much they are satisfied with the treatment, and then after three months they can buy either Botox or Dysport, receiving a second seventy five dollar rebate no matter which of the two options that they choose to go with.
According to Jeffrey Adelglass, the surgery director for SKINTASTIC which is a cosmetic company that runs its operations in Texas, customers are taking advantage of both of these programs, and truly are trying both available products. He says that there are in fact “distinct benefits to each of the treatments; they do behave slightly differently.” The savings are exciting to Adelglass as well, because they mean that his patients have more money available to use on some of his other procedures such as cosmetic laser surgery. Customers should always verify that any one who is injecting anything in to their face is a licensed medical professional and that they have had a great deal of experience with facial injections. Understanding how much experience that they have with the procedures is something that a customer should probably be aware of before they even visit their office.
