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Wednesday Mar 14 2001
| Updated 0057 hrs IST 1427 EST
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Gauri Kamath
MUMBAI
GLAXO India is setting great store by Zyban, a pill to
help quit smoking which will hit the shelves in May. The
company is gearing up for a high-profile launch of the drug
backed by a social campaign against smoking.
For the
drug major, Zyban comes at a time when it has had a lacklustre
financial performance with not many product launches to prop
up the bottomline.
Zyban, which is in the top 10 list
of new products for parent firm GlaxoSmithKline in 2000, is
seen by Glaxo to be a potential "blockbuster" in India which
has about 37 million smokers.
Though Glaxo officials
maintain that the India price has not yet been fixed, they
claim it would work out cheaper on a daily basis than smoking
a pack of cigarettes.
"It would also depend on the
customs duty (the drug is being imported)," said Kal Sundaram,
director, pharmaceuticals, Glaxo India. The company may
approach the government to waive the duty under the exemption
list for lifesaving drugs.
"This is a lifestyle
product and will have to be marketed as one. Glaxo could have
the first mover advantage in the local market, but it has to
get the pricing right. In the past, companies like Cipla have
given it a run for its money because of cheaper pricing," said
Shahina Mukadam, analyst at Development Bank of Singapore.
In Singapore, the drug is priced at the equivalent of
Rs 6000 for the entire sevenweek regimen. Mukadam said, in
India, it may have to be half that price.
The
nicotine-free drug, Zyban works by preventing a fall in the
levels of neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenaline in the
body. It is the fall in these levels which result in
withdrawal symptoms when a smoker stops smoking.
Clinical trials and case studies have shown that
quitters do not experience these symptoms if they stop smoking
while on Zyban which improves the success rate, said S M
Chandrashekhar, medical advisor, Glaxo India.
Currently, the other forms of treatment available to
smokers include nicotine replacement therapy i.e. releasing
safe levels of nicotine into the blood stream through media
like gums and patches.
Swiss multinational Novartis
India has been marketing NRT patches under the brand name
Nicotinnell. This is but not a major product for the firm.
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