Botulinum toxin—known commonly as Botox—was approved Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat urinary incontience.
Reuters reported that the FDA said Botox can be injected into the bladder to treat those who cannot control their bladders because of nervous system damage from such conditions as multiple sclerosis or spinal injury.
California-based pharmaceutical company Allergan, which produces Botox, said they will ask for approval to market Botox to more patients with idiopathic overactive bladders, the company’s CEO David Pyott told Reuters in August.
Botox received similar approval from European regulators last month.
Botox uses toxins that block nerve signals. Reuters reports that for overactive bladders, a single injection of Botox can relax the organ and increase capacity, with the effect lasting about nine months.
Known mainly as a treatment to reduce facial wrinkles and to treat neurological disorders, Botox is Allergan’s top-selling product according to Bloomberg, with $1.4 billion in sales in 2010.
The approval of the drug to treat overactive bladders could see $40 million in sales for that use by 2017, analyst Seamus Hernandez said to Bloomberg today.
"It's very smart for management to build out these therapeutic indications for Botox because it's more difficult for competitors to get into these areas as opposed to the cosmetic side, where they're probably going to see continued market share losses," said Michael Waterhouse, analyst at Morningstar to Reuters.
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