Safety Concerns Hit Sales of US Painkillers

Tylenol benefits from safety scares.

(PRWEB) August 19, 2006 -- Sales of products containing acetaminophen have increased in the US after safety concerns hit sales of certain competing analgesics, says the report “Analgesics in United States”, available from Piribo, the online destination for business intelligence for the biotech and pharmaceutical industry.

The 79 page report, written by analysts Euromonitor International, forecasts that acetaminophen will see average growth of nearly 2% a year until 2011, ahead of the rest of the adult analgesics sector which is expected to achieve growth of only 0.8% a year between 2005-2010.

American consumers’ interest in acetaminophen came after questions were raised about the safety of some analgesics. Studies in 2004 linked the use of Vioxx, an anti-inflammatory prescription drug, with an increased risk of heart disease, which led to the product being recalled. Then in April 2005, the US Food and Drug Administration asked Pfizer to recall Bextra, a similar prescription drug, and also warned that OTC non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as Aleve, would need to carry stronger warnings in the future about the risks of heart attacks, strokes, ulcers, internal bleeding and skin reactions.

As acetaminophen is in a separate drug class from anti-inflammatories, such as ibuprofen and naproxen, it mostly escaped public concern over safety and achieved growth of 4.3% between 2004-2005.

The report finds that Tylenol is the most popular brand of acetaminophen with a 14.2% share of the analgesics market. Its manufacturer, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, used the public’s safety concerns as an opportunity to boost the performance of the Tylenol brand by increasing its promotional activity which saw sales of the product increase by almost 18% in 2005.

Despite poor performance for most analgesics, there is also an optimistic outlook for Aspirin, which is forecast to grow by 1.4% per year over 2005-2010. This is due to the widespread use of aspirin for heart attack prevention and consumer trust in the product, as it, too, does not belong to the OTC class of NSAID’s.

“Analgesics in United States” is available in PDF format from Piribo
http://www.piribo.com/search/results.html?k=eur052&x=0&y=0

About Piribo.
Piribo (http://www.piribo.com) is a UK-based independent online store supplying business information on the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. The website now carries over 3,800 English language titles including, market reports, studies and books and is the UK’s largest online biopharma information store. Subscribers receive a free monthly newsletter and email alerts on new titles in their areas of interest. The company was established in 2004.

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