Interviewing our CEO regarding non surgical fat reduction and Coolsculpting
For a second consecutive year Blueshift, a research/survery company, interviewed our CEO, George Kakaris, regarding the future of Coolsculpting as well as the future of the general field of non surgical fat reduction! For the previous year’s interview as well for the previous year’s summary of the research click here and here. We feel it is quite important to share this interview with our audience, so let’s have a look at the most important parts of it:
PATIENT AWARENESS
- How do patients find out about CoolSculpting? What percentage learn about CoolSculpting from the internet? Advertising? Seminars? Word of mouth?
We think it’s a combo of factors. Physicians repeatedly recommend Coolsculpting, abundance of online references on Coolsculpting makes it quite easy to learn about it and the whole marketing campaign of Zeltiq seems powerful! And obviously noone should underestimate the power of word of mouth!
PATIENT DEMAND
- Is demand for noninvasive fat reduction treatments increasing/decreasing/staying the same? Why? What is the percentage of change in the past few months? From 2014 to now?
We feel that at the moment the demand for non invasive fat reduction is stable. We had a peak in demand during the last March/April and it seems that probably we will have a new one during this March/April (spring is the best season for non invasive fat reduction) but generally speaking, the demand remains almost stable!
- What influences demand? When will demand peak? Or has it already reached saturation?
We feel that demand depends on the number of people having interest on losing weight! If this portion increases this will necessarily increase demand! And obviously this is not independent from other parameters like media manipulation, beauty stereotypes etc.
It seems that the whole system has already reached saturation! Probably a new device, or an innovative idea will again change the whole game! But yes, at the moment it seems that the system has reached saturation!
- Are the number of treatments increasing/decreasing/staying the same? Why? What is the percentage of change in the past few months? From 2014 to now?
We read stories from several surgeons reporting that there is a clear increase in the number of treatments during the last year, but again, we feel that the whole scenery is almost stable during the last 12 months (according to online statistics we are gathering all these months)!
TREATMENT PRICING AND RESULTS
- Has pricing increased/deceased/stayed the same during the past six months? Are physicians and patients satisfied with basic treatment pricing? Why/why not?
We don’t have a clear image regarding the price of such procedures while it varies from clinic to clinic but the patient satisfaction regarding the cost is high simply because non invasive fat reduction is much less expensive comparing to liposuction! And if you ask me i feel that when considering the factors pain/cost/results a decent non invasive fat removal procedure is the best choice! As for the physicians, it seems that non invasive fat reduction is a quite profitable field so the satisfaction regarding pricing is high!
- How many treatments does it take to get desired results? Does this vary from men to women? What percentage of patients are satisfied? Dissatisfied and why?
The number of treatments depends on the device we are talking about and the patient’s expectations and varies from 1 to 8 or even more.
We’ve been receiving hundreds of testimonials which make obvious that while some devices (for example Coolsculpting, i-Lipo) work wonders others are quite inefficient! So the percentage of satisfaction depends on which device we are talking about! As for the dissatisfaction reasons these lies on the real fact that some procedures are inefficient and on the overestimation of the potential of a device!
- Will CoolSculpting continue to increase sales for Zeltiq during the next 6 to 12 months? Is it considered a fad?
Like what happens in the whole field of non surgical lipo, it seems that sales for Coolsculpting will be rather stable during the next 6-12 months! This is a notion based on online statistics we are gathering and we are not quite sure that this is an accurate estimation!
We feel that Coolsculpting is among the major factors that brought the rapid boost in demand on non surgical lipo during the previous years but probably it’s time for a plateau! BUT the new handpieces that Zeltiq introduces (like Coolsmooth) or other fresh ideas will probably boost sales and popularity of the procedure!
And definitely it doesn’t seem like Coolsculpting is just a fad while it is a safe yet efficient technique!
ZELTIC COMPETITION
- How competitive is this market? What are the leading companies?
Non invasive lipo industry is among the most competitive markets because of the profit potential! Our research on the top non surgical liposuction alternatives for 2014 showed Coolsculpting is still the leader in non invasive lipo (like it was also for 2013)! LPG with Endermologie, Chromogenex with i-Lipo, Syneron with Velashape and Solta with Thermage are the other leading companies!
- How aggressive is the Zeltiq CoolSculpting sales force?
Coolsculpting is at the moment the real leader of the non surgical lipo industry but as we mentioned above the popularity of the process seems to have reached a plateau! New ideas will strengthen the sales force of the company! Besides the FDA approval of several uses of Coolsculpting could boost even more the sales potential of the company!
- FDA has recently approved CoolSmooth Pro, which offers colder, shorter treatments. How will this impact the CoolSculpting system?
The FDA approval of Coolsculpting on January 2015 for colder/shorter treatments shows the way and will definitely help the company to boost its potential!
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