Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13451

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Publication type: news

Asomura Y.
Drugmakers Keen To Grow Hay Fever Drugs Into All-Season Offerings
Nikkei English News 2008 Mar 28
http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/FR/TNKS/Nni20080328D27HH601.htm

Full text:

TOKYO (Nikkei)—With the hay fever season unleashing sniffles and sneezes up and down the Japanese archipelago, pharmaceutical makers are seeking to cash in on this annual opportunity by widening the range of their remedies to include over-the-counter versions of prescription drugs as well as nasal drop sprays with stronger cooling effects.

While hay fever drugs are typically seen as a seasonal product only for the early spring, the drugmakers are emphasizing the ability of their latest offerings to help people suffering allergies to house dust and Japanese cypress pollen.

Near the entrance of a drugstore run by Papasu Co. in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward are shelves filled with a range of pollen allergy remedies, from oral medicines to eye-drops to masks.

According to the Ministry of Environment, the pollen count this spring is projected to be 50-200% higher than a year earlier in eastern Japan and about the same in western Japan.

“Because allergic symptoms, such as itchy eyes, appear to be more serious this year, a lot of people come here with a strong desire to reduce their suffering,” the store’s manager said.

In November last year, Novartis Pharma KK, the Japanese unit of Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis AG, entered the market with capsules, a rhinitis spray and eye-drops in its Zaditen AL series, which work to treat itchy eyes, sneezing and nasal congestion or drip.

Japanese pharmacists are already very familiar with this brand of allergy remedies because the firm’s products have been used as prescription treatments at hospitals for more than two decades.

The Zaditen products contain the active ingredient “ketotifen fumarate,” which is usually used for prescription drugs. The agent is effective in soothing not only existing symptoms but also preventing troubles before they emerge thanks to its anti-allergic properties — a point that differentiates it from existing drugs, most of which are a type of antihistamine and therefore designed solely to ease nasal inflammation.

Taisho Pharmaceutical Co. (4535) also wants to develop its hay fever medicines into all-season products by proposing to consumers that they be used for treating house dust allergies, which tend to be the worst during the rainy season, and ragweed pollens, which hit hard in autumn.

In November 2007, the firm released its Iris Arrest eye-drop medicine, which contains the prescription ingredient ketotifen fumarate, making the new offering its third rhinitis medicine to contain the ingredient after the releases of a nasal drop treatment and capsules in its Pabron series — moving ahead of Novartis in using prescription ingredients in over-the-counter drugs.

— Translated from an article written by Nikkei staff writer Yuta Asomura

(The Nikkei Business Daily Thursday edition)