Editor’s Note
**Editor’s Note:** This article examines the growing trend of Botox injections for preventing wrinkles around the eyes, highlighting Galderma’s initiative to train thousands of doctors amid rising concerns over botched procedures.
Galderma, headquartered in the Swiss canton of Zug, is training thousands of doctors to administer jabs as the risk of botched procedures rises.
Madeleine Speed in London, Mercedes Ruehl in Zurich, Financial Times
Clinics administering these treatments have become a fixture of high streets and shopping malls in the past few years. Doctors-turned-influencers tout new procedures on social media, posting close-up videos of people having needles inserted into their lips and foreheads. Hollywood actors appear to have stopped ageing.
Its shares have more than doubled since and Galderma has become the world’s second-largest injectables maker after US healthcare giant AbbVie, with a market capitalisation of about CHF41 billion.
As well as injectables, which make up about half of group sales, Galderma sells prescription drugs for skin conditions, such as eczema and acne, and specialist skincare brands like Cetaphil. Analysts estimate the Swiss company will generate $1.1 billion of pre-tax profit this year on revenues of $6.3 billion, which would be an increase of 21% on last year.
L’Oréal has reinvested with a 20% stake. The beauty company’s chief executive, Nicolas Hieronimus, has said women who pay for the sort of treatments Galderma offers spend twice as much on creams and beauty products.
Ørnskov trained as a doctor in his native Denmark before moving into the pharmaceutical industry. He now hosts a video series, “Beauty X Medicine”, which “uncover[s] the science behind beautiful, healthy skin”, featuring guests such as Dr Jean Carruthers, who first discovered that Botox could treat frown lines. Her catchphrase: “I haven’t frowned since 1987.”
Galderma’s chief said its core consumers want to “age in a natural way” and is keen to distance the company from the “pillow face” look of those who have applied fillers liberally.
It was first used to treat people living with HIV/Aids who lost fat around their cheeks and temples. Now it is a hit with users of GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy who experience the same conditions from rapid weight loss.
The ballooning number of clinics and medical spas offering injectables has drawn large numbers of untrained providers into the industry, raising the risk of botched procedures.
A University College London study published earlier this year counted 19,701 professionals administering botox in the UK in 2025, a jump of 437% in just two years. Doctors made up 28% of all practitioners, while the proportion of aestheticians injecting botox without a medical licence doubled to 24%.
Parts of the US show a similar pattern. A study last year by the University of Central Florida and the American Foundation for Aesthetic Medicine found that the number of medical spas in Florida doubled over a four-year period to 1,038. Over three quarters of them were found to be run by practitioners with no training in aesthetic medicine.
Ørnskov said it was difficult to control where products ended up in France because they had to be sold through pharmacies. “France is a special situation,” he said. “We will do everything possible. We have stopped delivering to certain pharmacies.”
Another area of concern to regulators is a growing trend for so-called “baby botox”, in which young people procure the injections as a preventive measure, in the hope it will stop wrinkles ever forming.
Barclays analyst James Gordon said anecdotal evidence from clinicians showed growing use of botox among women in their twenties was helping drive overall injectables growth.
A report by the UK government’s Women and Equalities Commission found that higher demand for cosmetic procedures, particularly among young women, has in recent years been driven in part by extensive use of social media, where practitioners advertise their services.
Ørnskov pushed back on concerns about Galderma’s role in driving this trend, arguing that the scale of its business was “a drop in the ocean” compared with the global cosmetics industry, as well as sectors like nutrition and wellness.
Keywan Taghetchian, a Zurich-based doctor who trains practitioners on how to use Galderma’s treatments, asserts that “beauty is very objective”.
Galderma is one of the prime beneficiaries of the normalisation of “tweakments” like botox and filler.
Sales of its injectables – which include botulinum toxin (equivalent to US company AbbVie’s Botox), gel-like “fillers” to add volume under the skin and injections that stimulate collagen production – rose 11.5% to $2.5bn (CHF2.02 billion) in 2025.
