Marketing Anti-Depressants: Prozac and Paxil Essay

The exhalation of fluoxetines patent necessitates swift, defensive action from all companies in the selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitor industry. As generics enter the market place, demand for more expensive, branded medications leave flux as price sensitive consumers toss to the cheaper alternatives. Additionally, incident prices on consumers themselves, in the form of copayments, will rise as insurance companies pressure their constituents to switch to more cost- rough-and-ready offerings. To overcome these obstacles, we recommend the following to twain GSK and Lily1. A decisive repositioning of the brand to emphasize its advantages over market substitutes. 2. The rapid deployment of new-sprung(prenominal) inclinations to support previous point while simultaneously addressing the solution of competition. Background fluoxetines early success stemmed from its comfort proposition of effectiveness and relative safety, compargond to the current brands on the market. fluox etine hydrocholoride obscure minimal side effects and was easy to self-administer, in contrast to the dangers associated with the Tricyclics and MAOIs on the market at the time. Prozac first segmented and butt ended psychiatrists who were the main prescribers of anti-depressant medications then.after Prozacs reputation grew, they targeted the oecumenical practitioners who were flourishing prescribing such a safe drug requiring minimal doctor supervision, at that placeby eliminating the need to project patients to costly specialists. Once the FDA relaxed rules on advertising prescription drugs, Prozac targeted the general public with a series of advertising elbow greases. Furthermore, Prozac initially positioned itself plain as an anti-depressant treatment but soon expanded to a cure-all drug, treating issues ranging from OCD to compulsive gambling. Originally positioned as an alternative to Prozac, an SSRI called paroxetime was introduced in 1993.Like Prozac, paroxetime was effective for various illnesses, could be taken at one time a day, and had comparable side effects. However, an opportunity to market and develop an unfathomed emerged in 1999 when paroxetime became the first and only medication to receive FDA sycophancy in treating social anxiety disorder (SAD). SmithKline Beecham changed its marketing plan, with a new centering on heightening SAD public awareness. An aggressive campaign was launched and supplemented by direct-to-consumer advertising, focused almost entirely on the disorder, rather than the drug.The attached year, SmithKline Beecham merged with Glaxo Wellcome to position themselves as one of the worlds largest pharmaceutic companies, known as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), enabling a significant increase in their DTC advertising budget which in turn triggered roughly $1. 6 meg in gross revenue. Recommendations Although Paxils patent does not expire for several(prenominal) years, it will be significantly and similarly affected by the expiration of Prozacs patent. Therefore, its reactive strategy to the nullification of Prozacs exclusivity should be very similar, on a conceptual level, to what we are proposing to Lily.The world-class concern for both Paxil and Prozac will be repositioning. Paxil has the advantage of remaining an exclusive brand and thus does not show the immediate concern of losing existing customers to a direct generic replacement. However, Paxil must stress its unique benefits to new customers to stay competitive with early(a) brands and generic forms of Prozac. Towards this end, we recommend that Paxil reorient its DTC marketing strategy to target those who suffer from illnesses uniquely treatable by Paxil, specifically SAD and Generalized perplexity Disorder (GAD).In addition, GSK should heavily emphasize the advantages of its newly approved controlled submit variant, particularly falling offd side effects. Finally, practitioner advertising should be increase and similarly targeted. Th ese measures will ensure that potential customers suffering from SAD or GAD will be more likely to both select their illness and purchase the GSK product. Even more, consumers may be drawn from otherwise brands attributable to the promise of decreased side effects. Similarly, Lily should put heavy fierceness on their new, weekly variant of Prozac.Additionally, following the introduction of generics, Prozac should focus its marketing strategy around PMMD. Basis for Recommendation The population of spate suffering from the two adds up to 9. 3 million the Statesns (minus overlap for multitude who suffer from both), ab emerge 6. 5% of the adult population in America (Exhibit 5). With the incredible versatility Paxil has had treating various conditions, these two aforementioned conditions, both comparatively new, shoot not gotten the attention from GSK that it really should garner given the incident that no other company can attract people in this state.GSK must look to re-positio n itself as a figure-head, a trailblazer in the field of SAD and GAD to build a strong market share now and develop brand loyalty to off-set, as take up they can, the impending downturn brought on by future generics for the product. Based on the regression we conducted using data from Exibit 12 , we believe that DTC advertising presents an effective way to increase both companys bottom lines. spirit at the data for prescription drugs, a $1 million investiture will, on average, yield a $14. million increase in sales for the product alone. That is a pretty sizeable increase and the model proves that there is a strong correlation between DTC advertising and sales. This does seem reasonable, curiously given the companies proclivity toward airing late-night infomercials (a form of DTC) when a large concourse of depressed patients are watching, leading them to go into the doctors affair the next time, recall the product they were exposed to by the ad, and request to have it prescrib ed.Paxil gets about $19. 6 million dollars return on a $1 million investment in DTC advertising. Similarly, Prozac should run a similar type of advertising campaign. Since they do not show up in the statistics in Exhibit 12, they should be slightly more hesitant to go all-in on the investment but should incrementally invest and see which committal it takes sales all signs point to a solid return for Prozac which already has a solid brand image and loyalty.Lastly, with the advent of the generic, both Paxil and Prozac have to seriously consider lowering their prices to a competitive level to keep pace somewhat with the much cheaper generic, Prozac needing to do so more because of its $14 higher price-tag of $79. 20 to Paxils $65. 70. With this market penetration set, and within a reasonable interval, consumers will be willing to pay that extra bit because they are comfortable with the brand and value its credibility and integrity.Plus, once consumers see a decrease in price, even w ith a cheaper generic option, those who are price-sensitive but quelled users of Paxil or Prozac will see discountand smack like they did not have to change their buying patterns but relieve money. The fact is Prozac and Paxil may completely lose out on their market share in the fields the generic has overture to unless the respective companies make calculated, practical price cuts. Although Lilly and GSKs hands are forced, they still stand to benefit greatly for this market penetration pricing strategy.