We have had a lot of inquiries lately about the return of the only FDA-approved permanent dermal filler on the market in the United States – Artefill. I am excited to report that Artefill is officially back as of several months ago. Artefill was previously manufactured and distributed by Artes Medical before they went bankrupt. Many patients were concerned about this development and mistakingly thought it may be due to something about the actual Artefill product. Fortunately, this is definitely not the case. Artes Medical, unfortunately, made a series of poor business decisions that contributed to the demise of the company. This had essentially nothing to do with the merits of the Artefill product and, in fact, some say occurred despite having one of the most promising dermal fillers on the market.
Artefill has now reemerged and is being manufactured and distributed by Suneva Medical out of San Diego, CA, with a whole new business model and phenomenal leadership at the helm. Because my practice is located in proximity to Suneva, I have been fortunate enough to see all the latest Artefill developments first hand. In fact, last month I joined several facial plastic surgery colleagues of mine from Beverly Hills down to San Diego for an exclusive visit to the company. We toured the manufacturing facilities and had an in depth group discussion about using Artefill for a variety of cosmetic uses in the face. This product, which contains finely engineered polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) beads, is the only non-absorbable dermal/soft tissue filler that has undergone the scrutiny of the FDA and received approval for this particular use. It is currently FDA approved for use in the smile line region (nasolabial fold augmentation) but has had great success in other areas of the face like the cheek and prejowl regions (off label uses). Patients do require a skin test 7-14 days before injection to make sure they do not react to the collagen paste contained in the syringe (which only acts as a carrier for the permanent PMMA).
If you are a current Juvederm or Restylane patient or even someone who has never had a filler but desire a more permanent dermal filler option, I would strongly recommend you consider Artefill.