For Dr. Frey, incorporating Letybo into her practice made a lot of sense. With some of her patients looking for Botox alternatives, “I thought it was a really good opportunity for a new toxin to hit the market,” she says. Dr. Frey has been injecting it into the forehead and the 11s, and says “its properties are essentially so similar to Botox—patients have been pretty happy [with the wrinkle-smoothing results so far].” Because the mechanism of action is the same as Botox and its cohorts, she adds, “I think it could be used in all of the traditional areas”—the forehead, the area between the brows, and crow’s feet.
As Letybo makes its way into more injectors’ hands, you might hear that it could work faster and last longer than its competitors. “Anecdotally, it does work faster,” says Dr. Kim, explaining that Letybo might yield results within a few days. The full results of Botox typically can be seen within a week.
Some doctors are skeptical of the “works faster” claims, though. “Maybe it has a slightly quicker onset, but the reality is, there is no instant onset of any of the neuromodulators,” says Doris Day, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in New York City. “They’re all going to take hours to a couple of days. I don’t think the amount of time to onset is going to be the critical factor that my patients look for.” As for whether Letybo’s results last longer than those of other neuromodulators, Dr. Day shares that from the data so far, “longevity appears to be comparable to that of Botox, generally lasting about three to four months.”
It’s not the first time that we’ve heard of a new neuromodulator promising to last longer—and doctors are wary of longevity claims as a whole. Shereene Idriss, MD, a board-certified dermatologist in New York City, previously told Allure that she’s tried Botox, Dysport, Xeomin, Daxxify, and Jeuveau on herself and finds that in terms of performance, “they are all more or less the same.” While some doctors were hopeful that Daxxify’s results would last longer when it was FDA approved in 2022, Dr. Idriss notes that, in her experience, it “does not last the six to nine months as it was originally marketed.”
As for that lower price point on Letybo, exactly how much doctors (and med spas) in the US will charge remains to be seen. But Dr. Kim guesstimates that Letybo might cost about $9 to $12 per unit in major cities, compared to the current cost of Botox, which is about $12 to $18 per unit. So if you’re getting 25 units total, Letybo might run you $225 to $300, versus $300 to $450 for Botox. In her own practice, Dr. Frey charges the same for Letybo as other neuromodulators—“we charge for our skill and the result, not the product,” she says.
In general, the doctors we spoke with are happy to have another option in their toolkit. “I’m excited to inject it,” says Dr. Kim, who does not offer Letybo yet but plans to bring it into his practice, especially to cocktail it with filler for shallow skin booster injections. (A custom mix of hyaluronic acid and neuromodulator “works great for delivering dewy, glass skin” by reducing pore size and adding moisture, Dr. Kim has previously told Allure.)