Word: tagamet
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...this warfare [between Pepcid and Tagamet] is to shore up the battlements before Zantac," says Susan Coleman, managing partner of NCI Consulting in Princeton, New Jersey. When Zantac 75 wins approval for over-the-counter sales in the U.S., she predicts, "World War III starts." She notes that while other over-the-counter acid blockers had been on the British market for a year before Zantac 75 appeared in January, it took only three months to overwhelm the competition. "Zantac on the market will be a significant competitor," says Robert Kniffin, vice president of Johnson & Johnson's external communications...
...Johnson & Johnson/Merck, producer of Pepcid, beat SmithKline to the punch. It won FDA approval of its over-the-counter version, Pepcid AC, and began marketing it in June. Between its introduction and August, when Tagamet HB first appeared in pharmacies, Pepcid AC gained a 22% share of the entire antacid market. "Pepcid had a window of opportunity, and it exploited it well in the marketplace," says Silvermine Consulting's Kelly. "That's an amazing accomplishment." Amazing, and expensive. J&J/Merck and SmithKline are each spending some $100 million in marketing campaigns for their new acid blockers...
Competition heightened soon after the debut of Tagamet HB, when SmithKline filed suit against J&J/Merck in federal district court in Manhattan. The company sought "to stop defendant from deceiving the public and undermining the launch of Tagamet HB...through false and misleading television commercials" and advertisements. The suit cited such claims as "8 out of 10 doctors and pharmacists chose Pepcid AC over Tagamet...
...outdone, J&J/Merck countersued in September, charging SmithKline with "false advertising" and asking for "corrective advertising and punitive and actual damages." Their suit noted, for example, that SmithKline falsely claimed that Tagamet HB and SmithKline's Tums work faster, and that doctors prefer Tagamet HB to Pepcid...
...Pepcid's quick strike, Tagamet's ambitious counterattack and the row over advertising may look like mere skirmishes when Zantac 75 enters the fray. This acid blocker is the over-the-counter version of Zantac, the top-selling prescription drug in the world and the pride of Britain's Glaxo-Wellcome pharmaceutical stable. Prescribed for 240 million patients around the globe, Zantac last year generated $3.6 billion in sales, $2.1 billion in the U.S. And last month the over-the-counter Zantac 75 received a recommendation from an FDA advisory committee, virtually assuring its imminent approval for sale...