Ep. 08 - #NewTox (Jeuveau) Conversation with Evolus CMO, Mike Jafar

You’re listening to The Beauty Balance podcast hosted by Dr. Usha Rajagopal, a San Francisco board-certified plastic surgeon with over 20 years of experience. We cover a range of highly requested aesthetics and skincare topics, and chat with industry experts and influential, talented women who truly encompass grace, beauty, and brains –  plus, you get the inside scoop on what it’s really like to be a plastic surgeon.

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UR: I’m very excited today to have Michael Jafar, the Chief Marketing Officer from Evolus join me today on our podcast. We are very excited about Evolus and we just started using Jeuveau in our practice. So tell me a little more about Evolus. How did you decide to bring it to the United States, what’s your marketing plan and strategy?

MJ: That’s a great question and thanks for having us on this podcast. And congratulations, I noticed that you have 17,000 followers on Instagram. That’s very impressive to see.

UR: Thank you, we are very proud!

MJ: I think we share something alike and that is we tend to communicate differently in today’s world. If you look at the heart of most companies that have been successful, they have a different communication strategy. Whether it’s their language, their choice of words, or even the channels in which they operate. Here you are, a prominent surgeon in the Bay Area and we’re doing a podcast. Five or ten years ago we would never have sat here in this type of forum. And the reason why you’re doing it is because you understand people consume content differently. 

For us at Evolus, we looked at a twenty-year market and we moved it closer to more of a beauty language and category than a medical category. Our company as Evolus is known as a performance beauty company, meaning FDA-approved effective product in a beauty lens. We brought in a design principle that walks through every content, every word, every model selection and thinks of our end-user –– meaning what she’s coming in here to get, which is not a medical treatment but more of a beauty treatment. We have a purpose at Evolus and that purpose is to make the beauty experience delightful and achievable. Everybody within our company abides by that purpose. 

UR: Perfect. That certainly aligns with a practice like mine. We are a small but busy practice here in San Francisco. We want patients to choose us because our service is great, the products we offer are great, and the treatments that they get are wonderful and they feel good and done in a nice, elegant manner.

MJ: What I appreciate about the way you approach this market is you’re taking one of the stigmas out which is this fear. People fear looking unnatural. People fear this entire “medical treatment” because they think of it as more medical. You’re breaking these barriers down so that people listen to a podcast, or they see your content, and you’re making it much more comfortable. From this beautiful office that I have the privilege of being in, to the approach you have with the patient. We share that commonality and that barrier should not exist.

UR: Great, that’s exactly how I feel also. So, tell me a little about Evolus. I know Jeuveau but at this point is that the only product that you have available in the United States?

MJ: That’s right. Jeuveau is a 900 Kilo Dalton product and that product is the only other Kilo Dalton in the marketplace relative to the market leader. It is our flagship product. We chose to start with a toxin because most people would require the need of a toxin such as Jeuveau before anything else. So you could build a practice, you could build a company around this particular asset. We have aspiration, we are publicly traded so we have to be mindful of what we state there, but we have aspiration to invest in this market, build out a portfolio and continue to build what we look at as an under-penetrated market. 

UR: When we’re talking about toxin, we’re talking about neurotoxin. We do have a few neurotoxins here in the United States. How do you hope to gain more market share? How are you going to differentiate yourself or be superior to the neurotoxins we have here now?

MJ: That’s a great question. A lot of people see this as an equivalent product. These are not bioidenticals they are biosimilars in a sense. They’re not identical products. Our differentiation is less about the product and more about the language. Our intellectual property and our differentiation is going to be and will always be our design principle. Our design principle allows us to communicate differently. We are sitting here and there’s a “Hello Jeuveau” pamphlet with pink gloves and a heart. You wouldn’t look at this and say, “this must be a neurotoxin” you look at this content and say “this looks more like a beauty experience or treatment and I should read more into it.” That principle is what we have been fairly successful with in a short period of time. We hear from patients, and as you do some social listening, that this company understands how to talk to me. This company is putting things out that I want to learn a little more about. You will hear less features and benefits and you will see and feel a true beauty product in this space. 

UR: I have seen that you have great social media presence and, in the non-medical terminology, you are considered the “Newtox” in the market. A lot of patients come in asking about Newtox or have questions regarding Newtox so I think you’ve done a really good job of getting that name out. 

MJ: I appreciate you acknowledging that because we are the first company to launch with a hashtag. If you think about it, most companies would launch with their brand name first and then you learn more about it. We launched with a hashtag because in today’s world that’s how consumers find things. They will find you through a hashtag and we modernized the search experience right off the bat. 

UR: With your marketing strategy are you hoping to attract younger patients? What is your demographic? Is it going to be changing or extending?

MJ: That’s a great question. The beauty of this space that we are in is that we have as many 20-year-olds interested in this category as 70-year-olds. The bell curve in this market has always been that late 30s to late 50s. Our goal is to look at a demographic and age range that is between 25-39, understand how to speak to her, and understand how to unlock that market for two reasons. 

One, they influence your 40-, 50-, and 60-year-olds quite drastically. They have a tremendous amount of influencing as they do with their parents. The second reason is, millennials have purchasing power more so than any other generation that has come through healthcare or retail. The reason being is they’re putting off purchasing homes to a later time, they’re buying their second car at a later time due to ride-sharing, they’re having kids later, and they’re really interested in their self-care. They have access to great products at their fingertips. 

That gig economy that is making its way through the system is going to be one of the most powerful generations that we’ve seen. We have been marketing to them as an industry by accident. It’s been the flavor of the month. One day it’s about mail, one day it’s about millennials, it’s all about whatever the hot topic is everyone will jump onto it. Our goal is to market to them and understand them by design.

UR: One of the things I notice with my practice is that millennials are very smart, they have a very different ideal of the way they look at life. They look at it as an experience, so small experiences make up this large experience. Each time they come into our practice, to see me or one of my nurses, it is an experience. And what we are offering them is a fantastic experience so that they can come back again.

MJ: I love that you’re staying close to that. These micro touches, to your point, add up to them walking away and simply saying “That was a good experience.” That makes a world of difference to that demographic.

UR: What other products are coming down the pipeline?

MJ: We are a publicly-traded company. We are on the NASDAQ and our ticker symbol is EOLS. We do have aspirations of building out a portfolio. We’re heavily and singularly focused on aesthetics and we will start with the face and then hopefully go beyond that. 

UR: Do you plan on getting FDA approval for the lower half of the face? I’ve been using Botox for decades and we started with the glabella and slowly moved to the upper half and, now with my slightly older patients, we are moving toward the lower half of the face and it has been remarkable how great that’s been. Do you see that as a trend where we encompass the whole face instead of certain areas?

MJ: Over time, we will look at all options, whether it’s training, supporting medical education, or supporting medical indication. All the options are there. As you recall, when Botox launched in 2002, you had one indication. It took about 10 years or so for the second indication.

Currently, there are four toxins in the market and only one of them has three indications, but you’re using it across probably nine or ten different areas. The industry will always be behind you because you will move faster, you’re more innovative, and you see things clinically much faster than any company will. But we will access it over time and see where the right path is.

UR: So, tell me a little about yourself. When did you join Evolus?

MJ: I joined about a year and a half ago around last June. This is probably the best thing I ever did personally. There are two kinds of people in the world. There are those that build things and there are those that fix things and -- I guess I should say three, those who ride a ship and just stay on autopilot. I like building. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial, innovative side of me that likes to explore the upper boundaries of things. I mainly joined for that ability to build something and watch it come to fruition. 

UR: What do you want practices to see or do to enhance what we offer to patients?

MJ: The easy thing to do in life is not to do anything at all and to stay the course. Change, rethinking something, instituting a new product, is never easy. For accounts and practices that have given us the opportunity to be part of their practice, they will immensely to see how we will work with them to keep them up to date and modernize them. Our entire goal as a company is to always evolve, whether it’s the content, education, or go-to-market strategy. We will always be on the cutting edge of the next wave of deployment. Accounts and customers that bring us on will get that benefit -- but Rome wasn’t built in a day, and to prove that we have to earn a little bit of trust and support within the community, and from there we will build the next best thing. We are excited about that. 

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Michael Mazen Jafar, Chief Marketing Officer

Michael Mazen Jafar joined Evolus as Chief Marketing Officer in June 2018. Mr. Jafar formerly served as Vice President of Marketing, U.S. Medical Aesthetics at Allergan™. Prior to that, Michael led the assessment and integration of Zeltiq along with the upstream development plan for Allergan’s aesthetic portfolio of brands including Botox® Cosmetic, JUVEDERM® Collection, KYBELLA® & Natrelle®. Mr. Jafar has nearly 15 years of commercial and executive experience building multiple market leading pharmaceutical, device and topical brands in eyecare and medical aesthetics.Michael is a board member of the Irvine Public School Foundation, an Orange County based philanthropic organization, he holds an MBA from University of Southern California and a B.A. in International finance and Supply Chain from the University of San Diego.

Ep. 03 - Emsella for Urinary Incontinence in Men and Women

The Beauty Balance Podcast - Episode 03 Transcript:

“You’re listening to The Beauty Balance podcast hosted by Dr. Usha Rajagopal, a San Francisco board-certified plastic surgeon with over 20 years of experience. We cover a range of highly requested aesthetics and skincare topics, and chat with industry experts and influential, talented women who truly encompass grace, beauty, and brains –  plus, you get the inside scoop on what it’s really like to be a plastic surgeon.” 

We’re kicking off our podcast with the first part of our V-Suite Series, where we discuss all things vaginal rejuvenation. Today we will be discussing the Emsella for urinary incontinence.

What is the Emsella Treatment?

Emsella is a treatment that has high intensity electromagnetic energy. It works on energy that’s similar to the MRI and it really stimulates and strengthens the entire pelvic floor. When a woman does kegels, that's the muscle she’s engaging. That muscle gets stretched out when you have kids and can get weaker when you age. When you have an orgasm those are the muscles that tighten and go into spasm. The Emsella targets the pelvic floor and makes those muscles stronger, thicker, and have more nerve endings.

How does the Emsella feel?

The Emsella treatment is not painful at all and in some women it’s actually enjoyable. It gives little stimulations to the pelvic floor area. We have the woman to sit on the Emsella and target the region between the vagina and the anus (the perineal muscle). That’s the central point where all the muscles attach. It gives a little vibration and stimulation. You don’t have to do anything but just sit on the Emsella and relax for 30 minutes.

How long is the treatment? How many sessions do I need?

I usually recommend a 6 treatment regimen for the Emsella. We recommend that they come twice a week and each treatment is about 30 minutes long.

Who are ideal candidates for the Emsella treatments?

The Emsella treatment is for women and men who want their pelvic floor strengthened. Both men and women can have weakness of the pelvic floor especially when they age. For women, it’s usually related to childbirth. Men and women can experience leakage of urine, especially with stressful situations, such as stress of the urinary bladder. This can be urinary stress incontinence with exercise. Young women would come in and say that they have some urine leakage when they laugh, cough, or doing jumping jacks. Sometimes when they go for a run and their bladder is full they notice that they could have issues with urinary stress incontinence.

In men, what they notice when they get older is that they’re unable to empty their bladder completely. This is quite a problem for older men who have hypertrophy of the prostate or when the prostate gland gets larger. When the prostate gland gets larger it’s harder to empty the bladder and you need to have more strength of the pelvic floor muscle to empty the bladder. Men who have prostate hypertrophy can have symptoms of waking up several times at night to go pee. The Emsella will help with this because when your pelvic floor is strengthened they can empty the bladder completely despite having a hypertrophied prostate so they can have a more peaceful night. 

How long do the results last? How often do you have to maintain?

The pelvic floor has an active, dynamic set of muscles so these muscles need to be stimulated and that’s what the Emsella does first. It kind of wakes up sleeping giant of the pelvis. Think of it that way. Once the muscles are stimulated and strengthened you need to continue with pelvic floor exercises. For example, doing kegels for both men and women to keep the strength up. Otherwise, if you don’t do any of that, I would say every 4-6 months or so patients need to come in to keep strengthening the pelvic floor.

What are some success stories you have heard from your patients?

Yes, we have some amazing success stories with the Emsella. We often combine it with the Femilift laser and I call it the “dynamic duo” because both of these improve urinary stress incontinence and vaginal health for women. The Emsella strengthens the pelvic floor muscles and the Femilift laser treats the internal vaginal canal and thickens the vaginal mucosa which also supports the bladder. I would say we have had great success with both of them and a lot of patients would say that after the first treatment with this combo they would notice improvements. In fact, I just saw a patient who’s in her late 30s, a mother, a professional, and she loves the super long marathon runs. She said that even after a single treatment of the Femilift and Emsella, she has noticed a huge improvement and stopped having any leakage.

Why is it important to take care of your vaginal health?

Vaginal health is really important because sexual health and sexual well being is important for both men and women. The vaginal area, pelvic floor, and bladder are all in close proximity to the rest of the organs, so having the vaginal health happy can improve your entire well being. Imagine if you could go on everyday without issues of urinary stress incontinence or having a good night sleep without waking up in the middle of the night and have more energy during the day. The Emsella is also known as the “Orgasm Throne” so imagine having better, stronger orgasms. I think everyone would be happier.

What do you recommend for feminine grooming?

We’ve been using the Lady Suite which is a botanical oil for your post lady-scaping. We take 2-3 drops of this light, really fresh, and not overbearing product applied topically and externally to that area. It’s not too oily and I like to put it on just to soothe after lady-scaping. 

What’s really great with the Lady Suite is all the organic ingredients. It’s got organic jojoba oil, meadow foam seed oil, and carrot seed oil. All these are organic and lightly scented, not too oily, and won’t clog your pores. It gives you a fresh scent and they’re good for your skin.

Photo Credit: Lady Suite