Eyelash-growth drug wins FDA approval

[underpants]

Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch

Published: December 26, 2008

Allergan Inc., maker of the wrinkle smoother Botox, won U.S. approval to sell the first prescription medicine to enhance dull or thinning eyelashes.

The Food and Drug Administration cleared the solution, called Latisse, after a unanimous recommendation from its outside advisers, Allergan said this morning.

Latisse contains the same main ingredient as Allergans Lumigan, on the market for glaucoma since 2001.

The Irvine, Calif.-based company is targeting Latisse at the $3.7 billion-a-year global market for mascara.

Read more: http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/business/local/article/JMAC0268_20081226-092405/162394/

[patrice]

1. ?! Yeah? Well . . .

[applegrove]

2. i had a friend whose mom had trimmed her eyelashes as a kid and they never

grew back. Bet she would have liked such a product.

[patrice]

5. That's kind of strange. I wonder why her mom would do that. nt

[applegrove]

7. Her mom was a teenager when she did it. Someone told her that if you

cut your eyelashes they grow back fuller. Of course they didn't.

[patrice]

9. Of course!

Sometimes, I'm kind of dumb; it surprises me . . .

:blush:

[Toucano]

14. That is really odd

We lose eyelashes all the time and they always grow back to the regular length.

I wonder why your friends don't grow back to their normal length?

Strange.

[applegrove]

17. I don't know. I always assumed it was because eyelashes didn't grow back. Alison's

mother's didn't. That is all I know.

[radhika]

24. This was an idea in my day too...

When I was a kid, we had lots of anecdotes about cutting eyelashes to make them grow back fuller. This was followed by more anecdotes of folks who - like the woman in the post - did that and ended up with no lashes. Same was said about head hair - you cut it to make it grow thicker. Never met anyone, however, who had either result.

But here in Beverly Hills, plastic surgeons promote eyebrow transplants for people that overplucked.

[applegrove]

26. Why I'm never plucking my eyebrows. I clean them up a bit but will

wait patiently until thick eyebrows are back in style. Once you start there is no end to how much you have to maintain the bloody things. I don't pay for haircuts usually too.

[JeanGrey]

35. Yeah they do. Mine did after chemo.

[applegrove]

37. Now I know. Thanks for clearing that up.

[JeanGrey]

42. No problem.

[bitchkitty]

44. I think Mom was fibbing, or leaving something out...

Because trimming your eyelashes will not stop them growing. It will make them short, but they will eventually fall out and new ones will replace them.

[applegrove]

46. Well I won't be repeating that story any time soon. LOL!

[truthisfreedom]

3. That's pretty brilliant. I wonder if it works on head hair?

Or eyebrows?

[mike_c]

4. pubes?

Somebody HAD to go there! :rofl:

[Rainbowreflect]

8. No, you really didn't!

;-)

[dipsydoodle]

6. Or let's you grow a beard like

:yourock:

[customerserviceguy]

10. Figures

the marketer of the drug Botox would do this.

Using this stuff to treat glaucoma is one thing, but to take drugs intended to cure disease for purely cosmetic purposes is asking for trouble. If I wind up on the jury for some socialite whose ambulance chaser is trying to sue somebody for giving him/her this stuff, I might just rule for the plaintiff, but only award one dollar.

[rox63]

13. I wonder if they discovered the eyelash thing accidentally

when they used it on glaucoma patients? Like a side effect or something.

[TXDemGal]

18. I would imagine that's how they discovered it.

My mom was taking some eye drug related to cataracts this past fall, and I remember her reading the list of possible side effects to me & one of them was eyelashes growing more.

[customerserviceguy]

21. That's how they discovered the other effect

from sildenafil citrate, which was developed as a hypertension drug. Today, you'd know it under a different name, Viagra.

I'm all for using drugs for their beneficial side effects, AFTER the thing has been out there long enough to know what undesirable side effects also exist. But using them for purely cosmetic reasons when there is a very short track record is just playing Russian roulette with your health.

[LisaL]

31. Yes, those using it started growing longer eyelashes.

[underpants]

15. Rogaine (monoxidil) was originally developed for high blood pressure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoxidil

History

Minoxidil was first used exclusively as an oral drug (trade name Loniten) to treat high blood pressure. It was, however, discovered to have the interesting side-effect of hair growth and reversing baldness, and in the 1980s, Upjohn Corporation produced a topical solution that contained 2% minoxidil to be used to treat baldness and hair loss, under the brand name Rogaine in the United States and Canada, and Regaine in Europe and the Asia-Pacific. Treatments usually include a 5% concentration solution that is designed for men, whereas the 2% concentration solutions are designed for women. The patent on minoxidil expired on February 13, 1996.<1>

[Bette Noir]

19. Viagra was originally a cardiac drug.

[catnhatnh]

11. a few points...

Drug companies charge a premium on patented drugs claiming "everyone" benefits since they use that money to research new drugs to "conquer diseases".

So first they patent a drug to combat glaucoma which is easily treated with ditchweed but at a fraction of the cost.

Then they roll those profits back into making and marketing another patented drug to combat the horrors of inadequate eyelashes???

I suggest again that ditchweed might not actually cure the second, but sure might help with the kind of feelings of social inadequacy that cause concern about it...

[underpants]

16. See post #15 and the history of Rogaine

exactly the same thing that you point out in your post

[jmowreader]

56. Ditchweed cures male pattern baldness?

If you guys could get pot to cure baldness, 50 year old Republican men with bad combovers would demand it be made legal by this time next week.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

12. I wish someone...

Would do the same for eyebrows. Eyelashes I have(More than one besmitten young woman has, back in my salad days, waxed rhapsodic about my eyelashes. No, I don't get it either). That said, a really heroic monobrow is something I have always wanted to try. Perhaps I couls wax the ends and have a handlebar monobrow. Now there would be one hell of a fashion statement!

[jmowreader]

57. Dude, monobrows SUCK!

I have one that I get waxed once a month...this is not a pleasant experience but it solves the problem of looking like evolution stopped before it reached me.

[OKDem08]

20. ahh...the inequity on this planet...

some people die of starvation and others....

[Javaman]

51. wow, it must be an interesting life to go through, such as yours, without a clue.

this was a drug discovered as a side effect in research for glaucoma.

Way to shoot first and ask questions later.

[shadowknows69]

22. Thank Gods that money didn't go into something stupid like AIDS research.

[Oak2004]

28. Yeah. I have an extremely painful spine condition

and you know what drugs we have for treating severe pain?

Opiates.

Same drugs we had in 2008 BC, plus or minus a few relatively minor chemical tweakings.

We do have a few useful adjunctive drugs, but the primary treatment for pain remains exclusively a family of drugs we've had since before the dawn of medicine.

But hey, if the abrupt deterioration in my condition that occurred a week or so ago causes me to pluck my eyelashes out in agony, now I'll be able to grow them back.

[shadowknows69]

33. I'm in the "messed up spine" club myself

Yep, no treatment other than cutting me in half and fusing half my vertibrae but I've got all the Vicodan I can eat.

[LisaL]

32. Stupid?The medication was developed

to treat glaucoma. Eyelashes is a side effect of the medication.

[Javaman]

52. yeah, glaucoma is such a wimp disease...

:eyes:

[valerief]

23. I'm glad the FDA continues to focus on important products. nt

[Javaman]

53. Yet another shoot first and ask questions later response.

:banghead:

[Confusious]

25. Stupid science and waste of money award goes to......... n/t

[GoddessOfGuinness]

27. You can't understand, since you don't suffer from thinning eyelashes.

You can't imagine the anguish a woman can feel when her husband's eyes rove to the young thing with a long, full, voluptuous set of lashes. Or when she loses out on a job because the other candidates had lashes to bat at a potential boss.

Such agony....

:sarcasm:

[Zorra]

29. lol. Well done.

Oh, Rhett, I do believe I'm getting the vapors.

[Javaman]

54. nt

[LisaL]

30. Hah. Little do you know.

The medication was developed to treat glaucoma. It also works on eyelashes.

[shadowknows69]

34. Pot works on Glaucoma

When is the FDA going to approve that. It also helps with the nausea that just about every other freaking pill in existence causes.

[LisaL]

41. WTF are you asking me for? How would I know. I don't work for FDA.

[shadowknows69]

43. Well what are you waiting for???

Go get a job there. We need someone on the inside! B-)

[Javaman]

55. Fool.

do you know that the research actually was for Glaucoma? or don't you ever read past the headline?

sigh.

[earth mom]

36. I would NEVER EVER put something like that on my eyes!

I had a serious vision scare the summer before last and the fear & depression that I experienced over it is something I don't ever want to go through again.

IMO, you just don't screw around with your eyes.

[fishnfla]

48. so, if you had glaucoma you would not use Lumigan?

I'll bet you your eyesight you would

then again, maybe not.

[Critters2]

38. Meanwhile, a parishioner of mine is dying of an "orphan" disease

that's too rare for med companies to put research dollars towards. :grr:

[truthisfreedom]

39. Glaucoma is a disease that affects on in 200 people. The drug in question was developed for that d

disease.

Fault drug companies all you want, but remember that profitable applications for drugs like this and like Viagra are what fund the research for all the other drugs we get. For your parishioner the only hope that pharmaceutical companies might someday develop medicines to help is if there is profit coming from somewhere.

[LisaL]

40. The drug was developed to treat glaucoma, which affects a lot

of people. The side effect of the drug are the longer eyelashes.

[Posteritatis]

45. It's obvious by now that the outraged folks in this thread aren't *reading* the thread (nt)

[fishnfla]

47. the amount of ignorance on this thread is eye opening to me

pun not intended

i am looking at DU in a new way

[diamidue]

49. sick. n/t

[Javaman]

50. bizarre side note. I have alopecia and have no eye lashes what so ever...

I would love to have something like this. Why, you ask? because, since I don't have lashes, I am subject to having all kinds of crap fall or fly into my eyes.

You folks with lashes haven't the foggiest idea of what life is like with out them.

Yeah yeah, you say, boo hoo for me, right. Wrong. I have worked as a mechanic and as a construction worker in my life and oh how I wish I had lashes. All the crap, paint chips, bits of rust, dust, etc, that has fallen into my eyes has required a few emergency room visits just to pluck this garbage out.

So before you condemn, take a step back.

[davsand]

58. As a Glaucoma patient I use a drug similar to this one to keep from going blind.

I use eye drops once a day to control the inner pressure in my eyes. The drops keep my optic nerve from being destroyed by inner eye pressure that is too high.

The first line of treatment for Glaucoma often (usually) is a beta blocker eye drop. I have a serious enough reaction to that particular drug that my Docs warned me never to use any beta blocker again because it could possibly kill me. The particular family of drugs that Lumigan falls in is another treatment option that is NOT a beta blocker.

The drugs in this class are fairly expensive--to the point that one month's worth of my eye drops would sell for about $140 retail. I have a prescription drug benefit as a government employee, and even with that I still pay $40 per month for my drops because my insurance company considers it a "top tier" drug.

Trust me, I'm not bitching because I know how lucky I am to even HAVE insurance--let alone drug coverage. I offer this information simply so you can understand me when I say I have serious doubts that this new drug is anything that MOST people are gonna be using simply out of vanity. There really is a medical reason why you have eyelashes, and THOSE people will benefit from having a drug available (meaning FDA approved) for treatment of that condition.

Docs have known for a while about the eye lash growth that attends the use of these drugs, but prescribing for that purpose was not possible because up to now, that was considered an "off label use" and not covered by most prescription coverage including Medicare and Medicaid. Now they can prescribe that drug FOR that use and maybe help a few more people.

Lest you think this stuff is "harmless" there are a few other side effects they warn you about, including a possible change in eye color. I can't imagine that anyone vain enough to pay that kind of cash for longer lashes is gonna be willing to risk their eyes permanently turning muddy brown as a possible side effect.

YMMV.



Laura

PS, before you (vague you, not anyone in particular) come in here and tell me I need to be smoking pot instead of using eye drops, I'd like to ask you how much do you value YOUR sight? I WANT to see my kid grow up, and I like to watch the sun set. I am not willing to gamble that I can smoke enough pot every two or three hours ROUND THE CLOCK to keep my eyesight. Would YOU be willing to bet with your eyesight?