The Perils of Establishing A "Mega Brand" In the Pharmaceutical Industry
Brand Name Services
Pharmaceutical brand names have never been more important in the marketplace than they are today. With the recent change in regulatory agency guidelines concerning pharmaceutical brand name advertising, blockbuster drugs have become household brands. To assist pharmaceutical clients in gauging how well their products fair in this competitive environment, Brand Institute has developed BRANDPOLL.COM™.
By identifying
potential strengths and weaknesses of name brands within specific industries,
BRANDPOLL.COM™ assists clients in monitoring how their pharmaceutical brand
name products perform in comparison to the competition. This complete brand
audit is a quarterly ranking and tracking tool that recognizes the most unique
pharmaceutical prescription and over-the-counter products based upon
top-of-mind awareness among physicians and pharmacists in the North American
and European markets. 
According to
BRANDPOLL.COM™, Prozac is the Top Brand Among All Prescription/OTC Categories
Overall (see chart).
To determine this measurement, respondents were asked to list the
pharmaceutical brand names that came to mind, regardless of category. Prozac
was deemed the number one existing brand name based upon brand awareness in the
respondent pool of physicians and pharmacists from both North America and
Europe. Marketers at Eli Lilly plan to build upon Prozac’s awareness with the
recently FDA approved Prozac Weekly, for long-term depression.
Brand Name Services
Eli Lilly has also benefited from the Prozac (fluoxetine hydrochloride) brand by developing an entirely new pharmaceutical brand name, Sarafem (fluoxetine hydrochloride), indicated to treat Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD). Sarafem (fluoxetine hydrochloride) is the first and only FDA-approved treatment for both the mood and physical symptoms of PMDD.[1] Eli Lilly has followed the lead of GlaxoSmithKline with their introduction of a new pharmaceutical brand name, Zyban, a re-christened Wellbutrin.[2] The creation of two separate brand names for the same compound has become increasingly popular. Nicotine-free ZYBAN has become the most prescribed product for smoking cessation, based on a recent national market research survey reported for prescription drug sales.[3]
Brand Name Services
There are many factors critical to building established pharmaceutical brands such as Zyban, Prozac, Claritin (Schering-Plough) or Lipitor (Pfizer). Even newly introduced pharmaceutical brands such as Eli Lilly's Sarafem, AstraZeneca's Nexium and Amgen's Aranesp are on the right track and headed for their pharmaceutical brand name success. Note that each pharmaceutical brand name possesses inherent benefits that position the product in the marketplace based upon short and long-term marketing objectives. In today’s global marketplace, marketing criteria is an integral ingredient contributing to the success of the brand. However, there are barriers to entry that sometimes block a pharmaceutical brand name from ever even being marketed. Patent and trademark hurdles are sometimes impossible to overcome. There are 65,000 registrations in the United States for Class 5 Pharmaceutical brands alone, and 1.2 million registrations in Class 5 for the European Community. Even when a pharmaceutical name is cleared of any identical trademarks, there are often other pharmaceutical names in existence that look or sound similar to the proposed proprietary name, thus creating other potential problems.
A topic that has
made the headlines recently is medication errors. Misprescriptions have been
the result of pharmacists misinterpreting phone-in prescriptions, or misreading
written prescriptions, and therefore dispensing incorrect drugs. Such errors
have resulted in severe side effects, and in some cases, even patient harm.
Such occurrences have initiated a most-recent trend by the EMEA and FDA to
place special emphasis internally within regulatory agencies, and externally on
behalf of manufacturers and branding consultants, to take extra strides in minimizing
prescription errors via the pharmaceutical brand name development process. In
addition to regulatory impediments, linguistic nuances (unpronounceable brand
names, and/or negative connotations) have made it increasing difficult to
develop one global mark transferring over 11 languages in the EMEA, as well as
many languages outside the EMEA, as a brand crosses various language borders.
When launching a global pharmaceutical brand name product, every language must
be examined to ensure that the brand name translates appropriately. Linguistic
screening is not only important in regards to prescription (Rx) products, but
to non-proprietary products or over-the-counter (OTC) products as well.
Brand Name Services
Brand Name Services
Although proprietary pharmaceutical products and OTC products often treat similar ailments, significant differences exist between the two. Not only are there differences in the dispensing chain, but also product naming takes on a different spin in each instance. Proprietary pharmaceutical products typically have brand names with professional and trustworthy tonalities. Names such as Bayer's Avelox and Aventis' Ketek are professional sounding. OTC product names tend to be more consumer-friendly. Some examples of OTC user-friendly brand names are Warner Lambert Company's Halls Zinc Defense, Novartis Consumer's Theraflu Sinus and Procter & Gamble's Crest Complete. The FDA’s 1997 guidelines have changed the face of typical pharmaceutical marketing and have added a new consumer-friendly dimension; direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. Consumers have become a critical target audience, and marketers are spending billions of dollars on advertising to this group. Advertising details such as typography are regulated for proprietary pharmaceutical products, as well as other trade dress factors such as colors and fonts communicating the look and feel of the brand.
Pharmaceutical marketers and manufacturers face multiple hurdles when introducing new products. Whether launching in the United States or in Europe, complex issues exist. Manufacturers registering multiple brand names for the same compound in different parts of the world is a trend that will continue due to the aforementioned brand identity issues. Global pharmaceutical trademarks and regulatory approval are difficult to obtain, and as more pharmaceutical products are being registered, manufacturers can be certain of the fact that this difficulty will continue to escalate in the future.
Author:
Brand Institute, a pharmaceutical branding, biotechnology branding, and consumer
branding consultancy firm.
Brand Name Services
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[1]
www.sarafem.com
[2] www.mentalhealth.about.com
[3] www.zyban.com, Prescription Audit (SPA) April 1999. Scott-Levin, a division
of PMSI Scott-Levin, Inc.
