Allergan Inc.’s Lumigan glaucoma drug for cosmetic use has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The company, which also makes Botox, will market the product under the brand name Latisse for hypotrichosis, a condition in which there are not enough eyelashes. Allergan plans a first-quarter launch for Latisse, which will be available by prescription.

Latisse contains the same main ingredient as Allergans Lumigan, on the market for glaucoma since 2001. Patients taking Lumigan found a side effect of the drug to be eyelash growth. The drug may also bring in $500 million annually by 2012, and the opportunity could be much larger longer term, said Gary Nachman, a Leerink Swann & Co. analyst in New York, in a December 8 note to clients.

"Latisse fulfills a significant and previously unmet need in the medical aesthetic marketplace with a product approved by the FDA that increases the growth of eyelashes, making them longer, thicker and darker," said Dr. Scott Whitcup, Allergan's executive vice president of research and development, in a statement. The drug's active ingredient, bimatoprost, was first approved in 2001 as a treatment to lower intraocular pressure in people with a type of glaucoma or hypertension within the eye.

Latisse is the first and only science-based treatment approved by the FDA to enhance eyelash prominence as measured by increases in length, thickness and darkness of eyelashes.

Side effects of Latisse can include eye redness, itchy eyes and a darkening of the eyelid skin, but nothing definite was yet announced.