New Clinique, Allergan Line Only Available From Doctors

Wall Street Journal:

Coming this fall to certain doctors' offices: A new upscale skin-care line from Estée Lauder Cos.' Clinique Laboratories and Botox-maker Allergan Inc. that won't be available from retailers and represents the next step in the blending of cosmetics and aesthetic medicine.

Today the firms are set to announce a partnership that will combine Clinique's product-formulation expertise with Allergan's clout among dermatologists, plastic surgeons and other doctors specializing in aesthetic treatments. The products will be sold exclusively through physicians, a strategy reflecting the increasing importance of doctors' offices as retail space.

That trend is particularly robust in dermatology. Consumers are increasingly consulting physicians for product recommendations in hopes of getting more science-based advice than is readily available online or at cosmetics counters. Physicians, for their part, are seizing on product sales to bolster their practice income.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[BigBagel]

05:27 PM on 01/24/2008

The medicalization of cosmetics. What a joke.

[VOTER]

12:19 PM on 01/24/2008

If Clinique hopes to sell their products then they

must drop their name and come up with a new one.

The association will kill the new product line as

there are many excellent products already available

through medical offices. This line doesn't stand a

chance up against them and many product prices are less than

some of Clinique's department store products.