Preparations on Aesthetics Academy

Alluzience: ready-to-use botulinum toxin

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Alluzience is a botulinum toxin type A preparation supplied in the UK as a solution for injection, with potency expressed in Speywood units per millilitre.

What is different about it

Every other preparation described in this section arrives as a lyophilised powder that must be reconstituted before use. Alluzience does not: it is supplied as a liquid, ready to use.

That removes a step where variation enters. Reconstitution introduces choices — diluent, volume, technique — and choices introduce inconsistency between practitioners and between sessions. A ready-to-use solution has a concentration fixed by the manufacturer.

Azzalure and Speywood units (abobotulinumtoxinA)

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Azzalure is a preparation of botulinum toxin type A, international non-proprietary name abobotulinumtoxinA. In the UK it is supplied as a powder for solution for injection in a 125 Speywood unit vial.

The same active substance is marketed under other brand names for other indications — Dysport being the best known — and the UK product information for every botulinum toxin type A product is indexed on the electronic medicines compendium.

Bocouture units and incobotulinumtoxinA

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Bocouture is the Merz preparation of botulinum toxin type A, international non-proprietary name incobotulinumtoxinA. In the UK it is supplied as a powder for solution for injection in 50 unit and 100 unit vials.

What distinguishes it

Bocouture is formulated without complexing proteins. Where other preparations deliver the neurotoxin together with the accessory proteins produced alongside it in the bacterial culture, this one is purified to the neurotoxin itself.

The argument made for that formulation concerns immunogenicity: fewer foreign proteins presented to the immune system, in principle a lower likelihood of developing neutralising antibodies over repeated treatment. Secondary non-response — a patient who responded initially ceasing to respond — is a documented phenomenon across the product class, and case series describe it occurring across multiple sites and products.

Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA) and Allergan Units

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Botox is the Allergan preparation of botulinum toxin type A. Its international non-proprietary name is onabotulinumtoxinA. In the UK it is supplied as a powder for solution for injection in 50, 100 and 200 Allergan Unit vials.

Its brand name has become the everyday word for the entire treatment category, which causes persistent confusion: “Botox” in ordinary speech means any botulinum toxin injection, while “Botox” on a prescription means one specific product with one specific unit system.

Botulinum toxin units are not interchangeable

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Every botulinum toxin preparation licensed in the UK is measured in units, and none of those units mean the same thing.

Why the systems differ

Potency is not a mass. These products are not dosed by micrograms of protein; they are dosed by biological activity, established by each manufacturer’s own assay under that manufacturer’s own conditions.

Different assay, different reference standard, different unit. Allergan Units, Speywood units and the unit systems of other preparations are each internally consistent and mutually untranslatable.