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‘Living cells’ therapy in race for new Botox
From Chris Ayres in Los Angeles and Oliver Wright



BRITAIN is at the forefront of a pioneering technology that could soon allow patients to grow their own facelift without risking expensive surgery.

Its makers claim that it can remove lines, wrinkles and even scars.

The technology has proved successful in about 1,000 tests on small areas of the face and is expected to be launched soon as a full facial treatment. At about £3,000 a course it could yield millions of pounds.

It uses small samples of a patient’s fibroblast skin cells — which produce collagen — taken from behind the ear under local anaesthetic. These are cultured in a laboratory for up to eight weeks then injected back into the face or stored for future use.

The effect is said to be similar to Botox, but longer lasting. Isolagen, the company that has developed and patented the technique, claims that the results can be seen within a month and will last for up to seven years. Botox lasts for about three months. The worst side-effect, according to Isolagen, is a reddening around the area where the cultured cells are injected back into the patient.

Long-term effects are not yet known, but the company claims that the process is much safer than “‘soft tissue filler” wrinkle treatments and hopes to win US regulatory clearance this year.

A promotional video, with a female voiceover in the kind of English accent that Americans find reassuring, calls the treatment “living cell therapy”.

Isolagen is one of a number of companies desperate to find the next blockbuster treatment after Botox, which generated $440 million (£240 million) in US sales last year. Botox treatment in the UK generated £6.5 million in 2002. Some Americans — men and women — are willing to pay thousands of dollars to delay ageing without surgery.

Collagen production reduces with age. Robert Sexauer, who is Isolagen Europe’s vice-president of corporate development, said: “We envisage younger women harvesting some of their fibroblast cells when they are still producing large amounts of collagen. These could then be stored until they need them in later life.”

Mark Lewis, an independent specialist working at University College London, who has researched fibroblast cells, said: “Obviously from a cosmetic point of view results are going to be subjective, but what I have seen is extremely impressive.”

Two other treatments available in the US, CosmoDerm and CosmoPlast, take the same approach to wrinkle treatment, but use bioengineered collagen, not the patient’s own cells. A third treatment, Restylane, works on the same principle, but uses biodegradable hyaluronic acid instead of collagen.

More than a million Restylane procedures have been carried out since it was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in December.

A less popular “filler” for wrinkles is made from calcium hydroxyapatite, a substance used to replace missing bone. It is not yet known how long the filler lasts and some dermatologists are concerned that it could cause lumps in the skin.

Another anti-wrinkle product awaiting FDA approval is an injection of bovine collagen containing tiny spheres made from a plastic called polymethylmethacrylate. When the collagen disappears naturally the plastic is left behind to prop-up the wrinkles. The results are said to be permanent.

Dr Alastair Carruthers, a clinical professor at the University of British Columbia, said: “There is little inflammation compared to some other fillers but there are some side-effects such as the possible development of granulomas, or permanent bumps under the skin.”

The men who yearn for silicone

WHILE women still account for nearly 90 per cent of all plastic surgery patients in the United States, men are increasingly going under the knife.

The most popular technique is the “pec and butt” implant, made out of pliable yet firm medical-grade silicone.

“Over the past six or seven years I’ve been seeing many more people interested in implants, and a lot of the implants are male orientated,” said J. Howell Tiller, a Florida plastic surgeon who performs half a dozen implant operations every week.

“It’s just that men don’t talk that much about it, whereas women will often talk about their breast implants with their friends.” According to Dr Tiller’s brochure, the body implants he offers (pectoral, buttock, calf and triceps) will “enhance, reshape, or better define the outward appearance of the body”.

The cost of an implant operation, including all expenses, is usually about $6,000 (£3,250), rising to $6,500 for buttocks, a particularly painful procedure because the muscles cannot be immobilised. Most implant operations take about two hours.

Recovery time is usually up to two days. The visual benefits, however, are immediate. Dr Tiller said: “At least with the procedure you can look behind you and see that it was worth going through.”


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-1004949,00.html