Advancing Laser & Energy-Based Aesthetic Technologies | Gus Rhodes of Solta Medical
the flx is the latest and greatest on our thermage line uh we we i think i think we launched that uh at the beginning of 2019 and uh it has now taken off uh incredibly well it's really remarkable to see the change from those early days tell us a little bit about the thermage flx because there are a number of people watching right now that either have don't know about thermage or think it doesn't work yeah and they haven't heard of flx tell us a little bit about it first of all how big is the spot how often does it cycle and what does it do so um you know you're right that they think one of those two things or that it hurts like the dickens yes right and and because it did yeah and it did originally that was a fair thing and you've been through four or five at least five generations right yeah so this is not this is not the old thermage that you introduced many years ago now this is a brand new device yes it's remarkable hello everyone and welcome back to the technology of beauty where i have the opportunity to interview the movers and the shakers of the beauty business and today is no exception with us today is my dear friend gus rhodes gus is now with salta medical but he's been with a number of companies as you're going to hear and he's been a friend for many years welcome gus thank you grant nice to be here it's so great that you came in to see us and share all of your intelligence and your background and so forth why don't you start by telling the audience where you came from where you went to school and that sort of thing give us a little feel for gus well sure yeah i grew up east coast actually which uh most folks don't know yeah i didn't know that yeah yeah outside of philadelphia and uh you know went to villanova university uh back when howie long was actually at villanova university a long time ago yeah yeah after i graduated though um i started heading west and uh actually had a job in san diego and i thought this is going to be sweet and and a great transition for me and as i was driving through texas um stopped at her friend's house and i wound up staying and never left uh so we started a an antique reproduction company isn't that right and i was we were making roll top desks and barrister bookcases and the old wooden ice boxes and it was it was pretty fine what part of texas so that was in san antonio and and so we had a wholesale business and we were up at uh the dallas furniture show and highlighting all of our our products and um after a week we came back and i i needed to see where our controller was and they apparently thought he was with us and that was the end of that company because he had taken all of our money oh no so it was it was a it was a good lesson so you pivoted so we pivoted and uh and you know eventually got into medical and started actually with us surgical and you know they had the initial surgical staplers uh to replace hand suturing of internal anastomoses etc and then they developed the laparoscopic products to allow us to take gallbladders out laparoscopically and then just kept going and going and going and and uh that was a great career that was about nine years actually that i spent with them didn't dennis conan work for them also so i think he did spend some time there in his early days yeah prior to the the laparoscopic uh approach and so yeah so then how did you transition to the aesthetics field and when so uh in early no i guess it was late 2002 yeah um i started with a company that was actually called thermage and we launched the first radio frequency skin tightening device that was called the tc3 and uh you remember those days one centimeter one centimeter tips and uh and circulated how often again was like every 10 seconds or something oh no it was forever it did it did i think it was three seconds and one centimeter exactly exactly so it took a while to treat a full face uh yes um and we really didn't know uh what we know now clearly but uh you know at that time we were figuring out the algorithms and and uh and making things happen but it was in in late 2004 that uh dennis condon uh reached out to me and he was just about to launch the fraxel laser and you know he was telling me about you know how we're going to only treat a fraction of the skin rather than try and resurface the entire skin and everyone's calling him crazy right why would you want to do that you know let's let's just only treat a portion of the skin right it makes no sense of course it's turned out everything has turned fractionated now these days and uh it was those were those were great days you know we started with with the sr 750 remember that and then went to the 1500 um and then we wound up doing a series of three that we had a family of three the the refine which was kind of the baby then we had the restore which was the 1550 and then of course the repair right and that was outstanding that what that was some of the most fun that we've ever had uh did that morph into the duel so the repair didn't so the repair was the the fractionated co2 oh that's right yes that's right it was yes not the 15 15 1927 that's right right so the restorer then went to the door to the duel that's right yeah so those the things you stayed with dennis at then it wasn't salta yet at that point no no so you went to reliant so i went to reliant and and i was there for about five years i think and and i was i was doing you know a lot of we all wore a lot of different hats back in those days and and so you know we were you know between you know managing you know strategic accounts and sales teams and and you know working with folks like yourself you know to to see if we could maybe get a little bit of exposure on the podium it was it was just whatever we had to do and and i don't know do you remember were you at the aad in san antonio in 2008 i was and we launched the repair that's right remember that yes i do and we had um who was it chris zachary had done an interview on the today show and it was it aired the day that conference opened and sweet he was talking about the repair because that's when we launched it and we got so much traffic that well also on our website and so our website crashed three times that day because of the volume of people who were going through our website those are champagne problems as aaron loves to say indeed indeed and and nothing has ever uh topped that you know that was that was a great launch we sold 100 at the booth did you really 100 at the booth that what that show it was they had a ten thousand dollar deposit and uh it was incredible nice yeah it was a lot of fun so in 2008 you remember what happened to the economy in 2008 yeah totally taken yeah and so you know people you know really didn't have a lot of money for cosmetic procedures at that time and companies were struggling and that was the time that that thermage and reliance decided we need we need to work together and merge to become solta right so uh that's how that happened and uh you know at that point honestly grant i i wasn't sure where where that aesthetic business was going to go um because the economy was tanking and and i said you know guys i think uh if it's all right with you uh i'm going to take a pause on this and and so we agreed to go separate ways and they continued obviously right but then i got into uh the interventional spine uh market uh with uh with implants to repair the uh and it will stabilize the sacroiliac joint and uh and so that's down in the hip and a lot of like postpartum females uh where their hips have changed and their their sacroiliac joint gets very unstable and the pain is excruciating uh and it was really really interesting for me to visit different practices and actually meet patients who would tell me their story on on how debilitated they were and how they could no longer work no longer be a wife or a husband and the how this changed their life and it really brought them their life back it was extremely rewarding yeah a lot of fun and the in that business you stabilize the situation yes so we had triangular implants and so metallic yeah so it was titanium and um and they were fenestrated and so as we would get them placed into the joint itself through the ilium into the sacrum and we would place three just like this in in a row so that we would get full stabilization of that joint and it was a very easy uh you know percutaneous procedure yes yes just a small yes endoscopic just as you would lead it with a pin place the pin first and then you put an auger over the pin and then just tap that implant down in place under flora and make sure it's it's in the right spot uh it has been it continues to work they have dominated the market there the company is called si bone and si bone currently is the only company that actually has reimbursement from cms for minimally invasive secure sacroiliac joint fixation so you were enjoying your time there you were changing lives of people when did you come back to the aesthetic business so uh it wasn't until the end of 2019 actually so you were gone for 10 years i was gone for 10 years uh i was in interventional cardiology after interventional spine okay and and so that was the the remaining years uh in between so stents and that sort of thing so um well before i was doing plumbing with the stents and balloons but this was actually an etherectomy device and so it would you know we we put it in through the the groin in the femoral artery lead it up to the heart and it had a crown on the top of it that would sand away the plaque from within the arteries of the heart and open them up so that you could actually get a stent placed in there so with kind of a roto-rooter kind of a roto-rooter yeah yeah pretty much except it was eccentrically placed on the wire so as it spun centrifugal force would have it circum circumvent the entire artery so it's not just drilling a hole we actually were sanding it was differential sanding so it's like if you take a nail file and you you rub it across the top of your finger okay it won't hurt your skin but will definitely file where it's resistance uh-huh and that's the same principle of this so how it would protect the artery itself but take the plaque out really cool stuff that is very cool yeah yeah but anyway yeah long story short you know um uh bill humphries our friend bill humphries uh who uh he was a valiant he was at valiant and then he was over at ortho dermatologics okay at part of bausch and salta reported up to ortho under bill and uh not many people knew i don't know that yet yes yeah not many people knew that and so you know you know he you know solta had been for sale for god knows how many years right when valiant uh took over yeah and when a company is for sale um how much do you invest in that company not a whole lot not what you're trying to trim the fat right you're trying to cut as much excess out right you show the highest ebit you can and and so you know as it was on sale for sale um it was still growing but it was pretty much stagnant and then once it became part of orthodermatologics and bausch health and bill was like no we're going to invest in this and we're going to give it the attention and and the funding that it needs to grow and you know i'd love for you to come back and and help with that and dave hagge our friend dave your neighbor uh was uh just brought back himself and so he reached out and you know dave and i were at thermage in those early early days that's right and had been keeping in touch ever since so you were at the marsh then you were at fraxel yeah yeah yeah yeah interesting and now now you're back at salta which has both right thermage and fraxel uh and our dear friend liz also is there indeed yes okay so what is your position now at zolta so so now i'm i'm over all of our strategic accounts uh in in north america okay and uh i also uh helped run our professional relations as as i once did uh at reliance and and work with uh people such as yourself and all of our friends out there right and uh and kind of uh you know elevating the name but you know the funny thing is though that um you know we just we're in the we're just getting out of this incredible pandemic that has forever changed the way everybody does business right and um you look back at how how we grew and and joe papa the chairman of of bausch had a town hall meeting and he was going through year-over-year growth of the different divisions uh within bausch and you know bashar and lom had i think uh two or three percent growth here every year um but salta had a 39 year-over-year growth in the last 12 months is that right i didn't it's incredible well you've launched new products yes right yeah that certainly has helped yes you have the flx for thermage correct the flx is the latest and greatest on our thermage line uh we we i think i think we launched that uh at the beginning of 2019 and uh it has now taken off uh incredibly well it's it's really remarkable to see the change from those early days tell us a little bit about the thermage flx because there are a number of people watching right now that either have don't know about thermage or think it doesn't work yeah and they haven't heard of flx tell us a little bit about it first of all how big is the spot how often does it cycle and what does it do so um you know you're right they think one of those two things or that it hurts like the dickens yes right and and because it did yeah and it did originally that was a fair thing and you've been through four or five at least five generations right yeah so this is not this is not the old thermage that you introduced many years ago now this is a brand new device yes um it's remarkable so it's a it's a four centimeter square tip now so it's significantly larger and it has this uh accupulse technology and i know you know what this is but just for everyone else who's watching uh we used to just get the general impedance of a patient uh by placing the tip on the forehead at first and just get what that impedance was because this is radio frequency which is really electricity going through the body and coming out through a return pad in the back um and that was okay it worked well but this uses this technology where it takes the impedance every single pulse so it optimizes the energy depending on the thickness of the skin in that area the amount of adipose tissue underneath the skin so that we're making sure to heat it to that optimum temperature to actually get the collagen contraction and get that not only two-dimensional tightening but three-dimensional tightening as we contract the fiber septi uh within the subcutaneous space all the while cooling with cryogen before the pulse during the pulse and after the pulse so that those two things is the pain that minimizes the pain uh one of the ways we minimize the pain and and and that was a great softball by the way thank you for that you're welcome and yeah i've had the flx yes yes dave hagee you mentioned earlier my neighbor here in uh hermosa beach manhattan beach uh he came and introduced it to me and i i was afraid of the pain because i know how much the thermage of old used to hurt right and i had the flx and to my amazement it didn't hurt and the vibration did that make an impact as well yes because using the theory the gate theory of pain yeah yeah you know and we use that with injectables and other things of course yeah it's been used with anesthesia and so forth yeah but the cooling the vibration the gate theory and uh the impedance checking it as you go it makes so much sense because we used to just do it once and then assume that the impedance which is the reciprocal of resistance would be the same and in fact it isn't because my cheek is not the same as my forehead indeed and the fact that we can do it on an ongoing basis god it sounds like i own the company i actually have no interest in solta or the company but i have had an flx um and i need another one think uh you remind me you probably do need another one okay so we have you have the new thermage flx yes tell us a little bit about uh clear and brilliant so if you would please no clear and brilliant i believe was launched 10 11 years ago and and it has been an amazing uh laser to you know really address three things you know people that want to prevent the signs of aging right and so i think it's probably fair to say that the millennial generation really kind of started that uh that that phase in aesthetics where they want to prevent the signs of aging so this is a great device for that but it's also to maintain your investment in and maybe some other procedures that you've done and to maintain that youthful look and and that glow but also to improve you know there's two different wavelengths uh one for fine lines and wrinkles and one's more superficial for pigment and pore size and tone and texture um and they were usually used one or the other right right well you either use the one for the lines or use more superficial for pigment and tone and texture but uh just this year we launched the the new clear and brilliant touch and that has been a game changer um the interest and the demand for that device has been incredible and and we did a number of things um you know we certainly updated the the user interface so that it's so much more easy to to to work with and to be able to select what you want to do but we also were able to now anytime within the procedure interchange wavelengths from either the 1440 or the 1927 with one one treatment tip so that 1440 1927 for those of you who aren't in the business refers to the nanometers that's the wavelength of the laser correct uh so they can interchange between the two wavelengths and they do different things right guess you've got they get it right absolutely absolutely and and as you know you know this this thing just took off and we we really expected that this would be something that would expand our market and expand our reach uh beyond those that have had our legacy device for for many many years um but remarkably enough uh the interest uh with current owners has been really really high um so um we're it's always exciting when when you launch another generation you know it's always exciting when you launch anything you know something is brand new clearly has a lot of pizzazz to it but but another generation that really makes a difference it's been a great success so far so and that's probably uh partly just to account for the 37 38 percent growth right no doubt so the clear and brilliant is new the flx is not brand new but it's relatively sort of new to the marketplace what's going on with fraxel and fraxel duel yeah so so fraxel duel you know when when we designed the fraxel this is something you may not know i'm curious to see if you do um the engineers uh were brilliant you know linda benedictus and his team were stealing very well yes i mean he was on a conference call with me just a couple weeks is that right yeah great guy well say hi for him i haven't talked to him for a while but you know his team you know led by ken chan and many others uh over engineered that device because they really wanted to make sure that this was going to be durable and stand the test of time and and not be something that was going to be breaking down often it was it was the only thing we had going at the time at reliant technology so we really were one trick pony but what i mean by that is that you know the the laser source itself is a telecom grade laser source so it's the same source that runs the transatlantic cable uh to transmit all of that data underneath the atlantic ocean you know that yeah yeah there and and did we have to do that absolutely not but len engineered that len said we need to do this and and so i think that has probably been the one most important thing that has led to the the longevity of this product line but of course the fraxel was the first fractionated laser you know with with that scanning technology that really uh you know it's like you're you're roller painting the skin as opposed to stamping the skin and that really was a game changer and it's pixelated yes you say fractionated so for those of you it's pixelated if you will the laser comes out and and they can roll across instead of doing stamps yes right yes yes so it's a smoother delivery basically is what that meant but um you know right now we have the dual so we do have the two wavelengths so it's the 1550 and the 1927. the big difference between the one in the dual and the one in the clear and brilliant touch is that this is a much more powerful device you know for the for the 1550 it's a 30 um 30 watt system uh for the 1927 i think it's a a 20 watt a system but the clearance really is only is a single watt it's a diode it's it's not the same source uh and it's meant to be more superficial and and not as powerful but those are still you know the fraxis duel is still kicking it's you know you know there's rumors out there that we're doing something with it we'll have to wait and find out but uh uh i i think it's safe to say that we would love to see something uh uh come out in the fraxel line again absolutely yeah i'm waiting for it i've heard those rumors also but i have no inside information um and then you're starting to market now the combination therapy of thermage to tighten and lift and create more collagen and elastin so forth and then the fraxel dual to smooth and remove pigment and so forth and to talk about the surface of the skin so you've wed them together and you're marketing them under the name thermofracs and and we thank you very much for that uh because as many of you may not know uh dr stevens was the one who came up with the term uh the thermofracs back in like 2008 in those early days wasn't it yes it was when uh clint carnell sued me i think uh for from foreshadowing on the terms that's how i met clint who's my co-founder of orange twists exactly and he brought that up on this program yeah came into my office and said i've got to see you for using that name for axel or thermofrax well i'll tell you it was a brilliant move because uh you were well ahead of the times no one was really thinking about combination therapy um and and many companies were really just thinking about mono therapy right uh but as we know when we look at any patient that comes into your door no one technology is going to address everything they need and so being able to combine you know the fraxel laser with the tightening of thermage was was a brilliant move corporately you know with your help we have really over the last over the last year launched this thermofrax campaign and putting together a lot of not only you know physician marketing materials but direct to consumer because we really think that this speaks so so near and dear to people who um you know have have been on zoom calls for the last 18 months who have been working from home and they're looking at themselves on the screen as we are now and saying i look like crap and i need to do something to help tighten and brighten uh my skin so we're going to continue with that no no question and and look to expand that market and you know one of the things i i guess while we're talking about zoom yes can i can i bring up the eyes sure absolutely because there's not a lot to treat the eyes you know and thrash is one of the only technologies that you can actually treat right over the eyelid safely to get rid of that crepiness and and brighten those eyes up and and open them up so that those zoom calls appear a little bit better well in addition to that if you treat the forehead the brow lifts up a little bit and you have more visibility of the lid and you look less sleepy less dreary and so forth and you mentioned titan and brighton and you said that and that address is really the concept that i talked about with thermofrax years ago because the titan part is the thermage the brighten generally is referred to the skin which is pigment and wrinkles and so forth so when you get tighten and brighten that's thermoph thermofracs basically you can do both in one yes and there are other ways to do that also but i i happen to believe that that's a wonderful marriage of two different technologies radio frequency and lasers two different technologies that come together and patients you know they don't really care the frequency they don't really get the energy source they just want to look better they say hey i want to look better i look terrible on my zoom calls all this stuff about zoom neck and zoom eyelids and looking down and all and i we get calls all the time because people are looking at themselves so much most guys look at themselves historically before covet 10 minutes max a day in a meal is that right generally five because they're sh they're brushing their teeth or shaving that's generally what they did now they're spending multiple hours a day looking at themselves on zoom calls and unfortunately looking down most of the time which makes their eyes look up and makes their bags pop out even more their double chin you know and all the rest and then they're calling me up and saying hey grano you're not going to believe it but i look like crap you know you and me and all of us that's right yeah so that sounds open the gateway actually for a lot of males coming in frankly because women have looked at themselves for hours a day for years forever and we love makeup and we love them for yes absolutely but we as guys have traditionally and typically not been as aware now we're painfully aware that we need some help i think that's very fair to say so without question titan and bright yes is a good thing and and i think you know as we continue to expand the market um you know depending on who the patient is maybe we use thermage with clear and brilliant mm-hmm you know depending on what they need to do that same titan of brian because you just mentioned there's many ways to get there uh so that's something that maybe we'll be looking at too uh in the future no reason why you can't couple those two together if they have less needs on the skin surface less brightening needs if you will right okay so that opens the door to my next question and that is about the future so i noticed you brought your crystal ball i saw that and i'd like you to tell me you've been in this business for many years you left for about 10 years you came back you've seen the development of these various energy-based technologies all in the non-surgical area tell me what the future looks like let's say three five ten years from now what are we gonna look at what's it gonna look like three years from now five years ten years well you know one thing we know for sure is that technology doesn't slow down uh it's going faster than it's ever gone in my opinion and and i think whoever can come up with the answer to hair loss and cellulite is probably going to have a good run um you know there's the mechanical hair transplant systems but to to get natural hair growth uh prp i think is going to play a big role in that in in some form or fashion i know there is controversy recently uh about whether that's uh uh appropriate or not but i think if as long as it's autologous that you know using your own blood to use i think that's probably is that right uh still okay right yeah um cellulite we have you know some some technologies out now some injectables that um i'm looking forward to seeing how that that goes uh i think you probably have started using that absolutely yeah so you know those are two things that i immediately think about that are probably going to be interesting to see how that goes but beyond that we talk about this pandemic and the response that we had from industry to generate the vaccines and you look at the the vehicles the drug delivery systems that they're using uh a lot of this mrna technology right and lipid-mediated delivery of of drugs you know obviously in the medical dermatology side i think you know drug delivery is is a huge opportunity but it might also come into aesthetics at some point you know i kind of i look at a couple companies in the bay area right now uh one in particular that is is using mri mrna technology uh to deliver a product that actually restores youthfulness is this transcutaneous yes yes so topical yes and um um i don't know enough about it to speak intelligently uh but i never stopped you before well you know don't let the truth get in the way of a good story right but um but it's actually you know fascinating to me i think that's you know drug delivery at some form or fashion i think is as a result of this pandemic i think might have a i mean i agree with you i would agree we had uh ryan beal on this program talking to us about dive d-y-v-e that is not d-i-v-e and he has a very interesting technology that affords uh allows uh transcutaneous delivery of drugs into the bloodstream actually transcutaneous topical transcutaneous uh with measurable levels in the blood in the urine and so forth in ways almost the same as an injection transcutaneous it's amazing and i i was asking about the possibility of other uh things such as botox and other drugs that might was tried for a while right yeah oh yeah that's right rovance tried that for a while and and had you know spotty results and uh uh well that would be fantastic yeah throw away the needles yeah uh i hadn't heard about the message rna the mrna you may know that the person who's kind of leading that charge uh anya cramer oh yes yeah so uh she used to be the vp of marketing at reliant for the fraxel that's right and so anya is running the messenger transcutaneously i've got to give she does but but it you know i just was talking to her a number of weeks ago and she was telling me you know you know the this regenerative property that they're beginning to see um early stage you know there's much work to be done but fascinating stuff yeah sign me up yeah yeah yeah well listen gus we could be talking for uh days on this and i want to thank you so much for coming here from texas thank you for appearing on our program here in beautiful manhattan beach um always always welcome and i love working with you and can't wait to hear about new developments at solta with fraxel and various other exciting technologies we'll have to get together in the mountains too sometimes absolutely absolutely i look forward to it and hopefully i'll be seeing you shortly at cosmetic bootcamp we'll see you in aspen absolutely so i'd like to thank all of you for joining us once again here at the technology of beauty where we get to interview the movers and the shakers of the beauty business and today we learned all about gus rhodes and sulta and where he came from and where we're going and his predictions for the future with transcutaneous topical rejuvenation of our skin and our bodies so thank you once again gus for coming and thank you all for joining us i'll see you each and every tuesday on the technology of beauty you
2021-09-09 19:43
