The past five years has seen numerous injectable fillers come onto the market. From just a few in 2002 to now over a dozen presently, the rush to enter the multi-billion dollar injectable anti-aging market has been near feverish. In my Indianapolis plastic surgery practice, I have seen more sales representatives for injectable fillers this decade than any other single device or implant services that we offer.
But with the emergence of different filler compositions from various manufacturers, there was bound to be some eventual casualties as well. It is a very competitive business nowadays and there is a lot of players with materials that virtually do the same thing. As I tell patients when it comes to injectable fillers, it is merely a matter of how long do they last and how much they cost. Therein lies their major differences. They all work and can do the job.
The first injectable filler casualty was ArteFill in 2008. Despite years of clinical trial, a novel beaded composition, and tens of millions of dollars of investment, ArteFill was only commercially available for a few short years before they ceased manufacture and sales. While only the company officials can say for sure why this occurred, rumors abound that it was the result of mismanagement and internal corporate squabbling. And when you are a company selling but one product, there is not much margin for error in marketing and distribution of it.
We now have just seen the second casualty, Evolence. Ortho Dermatologics announced on November 3 that they are discontining its manufacture and marketing and thus sales. No specifics reasons have been given for this difficult decision. We are left to conjecture as to whether this was due to poor product performance, way underperforming sales or some combination thereof. Given that it has been on the market just over a year, it is hard to know whether it was either. With its unique combination of hyaluronic-acid and collagen, it theoretically appeared to have the marketing advantages of both. Plus, unlike ArteFill, it was aligned with a company who had other dermatologic products for sale.
Interestingly, there is one similarity between ArteFill and Evolence. Neither one was approved or even clandestinely advocated for lip augmentation. As an injectable filler, that is a significant sales problem. Eliminating use in the lips narrows the filler market for many physicians by almost 50%. Since injectable fillers is largely a southern facial procedure (lips and nasolabial folds) for now, you have made your product fight for use in an even narrower market.
In the next few years, we will undoubtably see a few more injectable fillers go by the wayside. (with many more likely to appear) At the very least, some will temporarily disappear and re-emerge with other companies with whom they may be better aligned from a marketing and sales standpoint.
Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana