11 April 2018 - Deborah Wilkes
Perrigo has extended its store-brand offering in the US with a "melt-in-your-mouth" omeprazole product for frequent heartburn. The company said the "novel" OTC product, which could be taken without water, provided "consumer-friendly dosing".
The newcomer competes with Procter & Gamble's Prilosec OTC omeprazole product which is not available in a melt-in-your-mouth format.
Jeff Needham – president of Perrigo's Consumer Healthcare Americas business – said its product combined the "effective heartburn relief of omeprazole with innovative MELTech melt-in-your-mouth technology that heartburn sufferers desire".
"Consumers want a heartburn medication that provides effective, long-term relief," said Needham, "but they also want a product that is easy and convenient to take."
Will continue to invest in these types of opportunities
Needham said Perrigo was "excited to be the first to bring this innovation to the heartburn OTC category". He added that the company would "continue to invest in these types of opportunities, where national brand alternatives do not currently exist".
Perrigo is supporting the launch with a product website at https://www.dissolveyourheartburn.com/default.aspx. The website points out that the store-brand product is "just as effective as national brands like Prilosec OTC, and offered at a much lower price".
Quoting data from IRI, Perrigo said retail sales of products containing omeprazole – both store brands and the nationally-advertised brand Prilosec OTC – were more than USD600 million over the past 12 months.
Omeprazole Delayed Release Orally-Disintegrating Tablets 20mg is the result of a partnership between Perrigo and Israeli company Dexcel Pharma Technologies. The product comes in a pack of 42 strawberry-flavoured tablets.
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