smalljay wrote: Hi Dr. Oates,
I was hoping to pick your brain about the very high costs of HA. I\'m not talking about your prices per say (I don\'t even know them). But in general. I\'ve looked in the USA, Mexico and the UK for price points - for my penis but also for other areas of my body. I was quoted at well over $400 per cc. So for the penis, if I wanted a good long lasting HA it was gonna cost me like $5700 for a temporary result. My questions for you are:- Why is HA so expensive? Is this just a high markup by doctors or is it more to do with the wholesale price?- Do you foresee HA ever getting cheaper in the future due to any factor, such as production becoming cheaper/easier? Or is the high price of HA here to stay?- How do doctors in Europe/Mexico offer 150cc/ml+ of Macrolane for breast enlargement and only charge 3000 euros? How can they possibly afford to give away that many CC\'s of Macrolane for like $25 per cc? Meanwhile if you ask for Macrolane in the penis, you\'ll be charged over $300 per cc. I guess that takes into account the s needed to apply it to the penis, but still. The markup on Macrolane (the cheapest HA) must be very high if breast enlargements can be done so cheaply.
Thanks for all the info you\'re providing us,
Smalljay
I think there are a number of things to it.
HA - in Australia - is just expensive to buy ($ 160 - 300/ml depending on the brand and level of discount the doctor get proportional to volume). We have never had macrolane. Sure I could buy it for $10/ml off the internet but that would be illegal, unethical and very short sighted as it is likely to be a disaster.
I have a relatively high cost practice and if dont markup by 100% would lose money.
But as our volume is going up and the manufacturers are taking notice of what we are doing the possibility for greater discounts are arising. We are looking at using \"Ultimate\" by Teosyal. Teosyal are probably about #3
HA brand after Alergan\'s Juverderm and Galdera\'s
Restylane ranges. teosyal claim that Ultimate is the longest lasting
HA on the market. So we are interested. Also maybe they have more to gain by being linked to
Calibre than Allergan has. And Ultimate does come in a 3 ml syringe - better chance of per ml discount.
As I am essentially the only person/clinic offering this in Australia we dont have any competition. But, no doubt, someone will jump onto this soon and the only way to \'compete\' with our experience will to be cheaper.
Eventually I will do training in other countries and train 10+ doctors in a course and then there will be doctors everywhere offering
Calibre. It is coming.