This week's question came in on WhatsApp from a customer looking at one of our listings: "Does it come in powder or liquid form?" The product they asked about happened to be a liquid. The question deserves a wider answer, because across the injectables we supply it comes in three shapes: a dry powder alone in its vial, a liquid already sealed in its container, or a powder and a liquid packed together as a set. Every listing says which, and for products filed as medicines in Korea, the national drug register says it too, in a single line.
The customer's follow-up asked what to mix a powder with. That is a preparation question, answered by the package insert of the specific product, and this article leaves it there. What follows covers only what is physically in the box on arrival.
The register has a line for exactly this question
Every Korean drug filing in the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) register carries an appearance field, 성상 in Korean, that describes the contents of the container in one sentence. It was written for the filing, not for a sales page, and it is the most direct written answer to "powder or liquid" that exists for a filed product. Beside it sits a pack-unit field listing what goes into each box. We read both fields for the products below on 21 October 2026.
Powder, alone in its vial: BOTULAX
BOTULAX 100 Units is filed by Hugel as 보툴렉스주. Its appearance field describes a white freeze-dried powder in a colourless, transparent glass vial. The pack unit reads one vial per box, holding 100 units, and names nothing else. Our listing says the same in its own words: a lyophilized powder in a single vial, one vial to a box.
That pairing is what prompts the follow-up question. When the powder vial is the only item in the carton, the box carries no liquid of its own, and the register records this through what the pack-unit field leaves out rather than through any statement.
A product category does not settle the form. Medytox's INNOTOX, also a botulinum toxin type A, is filed with an appearance field describing a colourless, transparent liquid in a glass vial. Two products in the same category can arrive in opposite forms, which is why the answer has to come from the individual filing. Our comparison of Korean botulinum toxins by maker and form lays the main products out side by side.
Liquid, already in its container: Hyaron Prefilled and MELSMON
Hyaron Prefilled, filed by Dongkook Pharmaceutical in 1993, has one of the more specific appearance lines in the register: a colourless, transparent viscous liquid inside a glass barrel stoppered with rubber at both ends, described as part of a pre-filled syringe system. The pack unit is 2.5 mL per barrel, in boxes of five or ten. We supply the ten-syringe box, which our listing describes as a clear, smooth gel in 2.5 mL pre-filled syringes.
MELSMON is a liquid in a different container. Its filing describes a light brown, transparent liquid in a brown ampoule, packed as 50 ampoules of 2 mL to a box, and our listing for MELSMON Inj carries the same count. For both products the contents arrive already in liquid form, sealed in the container the filing names.
Powder and liquid in one set: PLAXOM
The third shape is a set. Our listing for SELASTIN PLAXOM describes each set as two vials, Vial 1 holding 200 mg of powder and Vial 2 holding 6 mL of solution, with three sets to a package, and it labels the form directly as "Powder + Liquid". In this case the box does carry its own liquid, because the two components are packed together by the manufacturer.
For PLAXOM we read the listing's package description and did not use a register record. The pattern to recognise is two containers of different kinds in one set, which is how a powder product shows that its liquid travels with it.
Reading the form from a listing before ordering
Three places on a listing settle the question. The formulation or description line uses the words lyophilized, freeze-dried or powder for a dry product, and solution, liquid, gel, ampoule or pre-filled syringe for a liquid one. The package contents line says whether one container or two are in the box, and two containers of different kinds mean a set. Where a listing is vague, the Korean product name on the carton leads to the register's appearance line, which settles it.
The listings named here
KSTATION supplies BOTULAX 100 Units as a single vial, Hyaron Prefilled in boxes of ten syringes, MELSMON Inj in boxes of 50 ampoules and PLAXOM in three-set packages. When the form matters for an order, the package line on each listing is the one to check. Why one class of injectable, glutathione, is made as a powder in the first place is covered in why glutathione ships as a freeze-dried powder, and last week's question, on alternatives to Hyaron, reads the same register for a different purpose.
Frequently asked
Is botulinum toxin a powder or a liquid?
Both forms exist among Korean filings. All five of Hugel's BOTULAX filings, at 50, 100, 150, 200 and 300 units, describe a white freeze-dried powder, while Medytox's INNOTOX filing lists liquid vials at 25, 50 and 100 units.
Is Hyaron Prefilled a liquid or a gel?
Its Korean filing calls it a viscous liquid, and our listing calls it a clear, smooth gel. Both describe the same solution of 10 mg of sodium hyaluronate per mL, which is thick enough to read as a gel.
What does lyophilized mean on a listing?
Lyophilized means freeze-dried: water is removed from the frozen product under vacuum, leaving a dry solid. The two words describe the same form.
Where is the appearance field in the Korean register?
It is in the detailed record of each drug filing on the MFDS register, under 성상. The MFDS open data service publishes the same text as the CHART field.
Sources and references
- Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS), Korean drug product register, detailed records for 보툴렉스주 (five filings), 이노톡스주, 히야론프리필드주사(히알루론산나트륨) and 멜스몬주(자하거추출물), appearance and pack-unit fields, retrieved 21 October 2026.
- KSTATION product listings for BOTULAX 100 Units, Hyaron Prefilled, MELSMON Inj and SELASTIN PLAXOM, retrieved 21 October 2026.
- KSTATION editorial policy, on how product and register facts are separated in our writing.
Register entries are a reading taken on 21 October 2026. Filings and their detailed records change without notice. This article describes the form in which products arrive. It does not describe how any product is prepared, combined or used.
