Mumbai: Drug companies smell a long-term opportunity in the several anti-tobacco initiatives getting enforced in the country. And that in turn is fuelling their plans for the tobacco cessation segment, involving therapies to get smokers to kick the habit.

Budget 05, it is reported, may announce a health cess on tobacco products. And a global anti-smoking treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), kicks-in across the world on Sunday (Feb 27).

This, combined with the anti-tobacco legislation already in place in the country, has spurred the bullish sentiment on tobacco cessation and last week saw drug companies Pfizer and Elder Pharma unveil plans for the segment.

A patented tobacco cessation product from the Pfizer stable will be brought into India in a couple of years, Pfizer India's, Managing Director, Hocine Sidi Said, told analysts last week.

With immediate plans for the segment, Elder Pharma has inked an exclusive marketing arrangement with Ceejay Healthcare to market the latter's nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) product Nu Life in the country.

Ceejay Healthcare had launched the chewing gum NRT product in the over-the-counter category in 2003. But with the OTC strategy being mismatched for a serious NRT product, Elder Pharma got on board and re-launched the product though the ethical route, where doctors would prescribe the product to smokers.

Elder Pharma has done post-marketing trials for the product and expects it to add Rs 15 crore to the kitty in the first year after launch, Elder's General Manager, Marketing, Tarun Kumar, told Business Line.

Priced at Rs 8 for one miligram, Rs 15 for two milligrams and Rs 10 for four milligrams, the product will be available in two flavours - GoodKha for chewing tobacco and Eucomint for smokers. The product will be available across the country by mid-March, he said.

Other pharma companies in the fray include Sun Pharma with its Smoquit, also a prescription product and GlaxoSmithKline with Zyban. But it has been a blow hot, blow cold experience for both these companies, with Smoquit not exactly being a brand on fire.

GSK on its part had to put Zyban on the back-burner, with the market not being ready for such intensive and expensive treatment, besides there were global reports of side-effects, said an analyst.

Putting the issue in perspective, Dr Srinath Reddy, Professor of Cardiology, All-India Institute of Medical Sciences and an expert on the subject said that the FCTC gives countries that are signatory to the treaty three years to have caution labels on tobacco product packs and five years to completely ban advertising.

"Despite the legislation being in place, India is still to address cross-border advertising, surrogate advertising and issues around smokeless tobacco. Tobacco cessation products will see a growth as the Centre opens up cessation clinics across the country and more anti-tobacco initiatives are launched."