Orange County Register

Photos: Patient before (left) and after (right) Evolence injections. (Photo courtesy of Johnson & Johnson)

EVOLENCE, WE HARDLY KNEW YE

Johnson & Johnson has taken Evolence off life support.

The company sent a letter to doctors yesterday, informing them that it was pulling the dermal filler off the market. Unless some other company buys the Evolence operation, it won’t be produced or sold any more, effective immediately.

“I just talked to the company today and they told me that sales had not met expectations so they are dropping the product,” plastic surgeon Dr. Val Lambros of Newport Beach told today’s online “In Your Face CHAT.”

A year ago, Evolence was just reaching the market and was supposed to be strong challenger to the No. 1 and No. 2 dermal fillers, Restylane and Juvederm.

Because Johnson & Johnson is so large, smaller companies such as Allergan, which makes Juvederm, were thought to be vulnerable to a powerful J&J marketing effort.

But it never caught on.

“I never used it because other fillers work just as well in my experience,” Lambros said.

Lambros and J&J said Evolence didn’t produce adverse reactions in patients.

“Evolence has had a lot of good press among injectors,” Lambros said. “I was just at a big plastic surgery meeting in Seattle where they were actively promoting the product.”

Last month, an Israeli newspaper reported that J & J planned to sell Evolence’s manufacturer, the Israel-based subsidiary, ColBar, after it sold only $25 million of the filler in a year, far below expectations.

J & J purchased ColBar for a reported $159 million.

The cosmetic medicine Web site RealSelf.com reported that Evolence got positive ratings from only 35 percent of its readers in an unscientific survey. Some of them cited problems with lumps under the skin where Evolence was injected. By contrast, Restylane has a 57 percent rating, while Juvederm is at 58 percent.

Posts about Evolence:

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.