Plastic Surgery Stocks

I saw a really interesting analysis of the stock prospects of several of the major cosmetic medicine & Plastic Surgery industry companies on The Street.com, specifically the heavy hitters Allergan-Inamed, Mentor, & Medicis are all spotlighted, each incidentally is up ~10% for this year.

There are a lot of competing products hitting the market as Allergan's new injectable filler, Juvederm tries to unseat the popular Restalyne (from Medicis). Likewise, Medacis' Reloxin (a drug similar to Botox) should hit the market in the US next year. Hopefully that will lower the price of some of these injectables.

Things are set to heat up in the US implant market with the recent silicone implant reintroduction. The article writes,

"Allergan and Mentor are the dominant players in this $500 million to $600 million global market segment. Most analysts expect 30% to 40% first-year conversion rates of the saline-implant market, but early gains may be greater, as a result of pent-up market demand. The anticipated switch to more profitable implants supports a strong revenue outlook and further margin upside for these two players in '07."

I personally think an estimate of 30-40% market share for silicone is on the low end talking to other surgeons. Meanwhile, my savvy Plastic Surgery stock-pick of Ivivi is now sitting a full 10% below it's IPO price. I guess my kids will be going to state instead of Princeton :)