Price-elasticity would limit use of OTC NSAs, says Harris Interactive study

In May this year, an advisory panel to the US Food and DrugAdministration recommended that three non-sedating antihistamines, Schering-Plough's Claritin (loratidine), Aventis' Allegra/Telfast (fexofenadine) and Pfizer's Zyrtec (cetirizine) should be sold over-the-counter, without a doctor's prescription (Marketletter May 21).

However, data from Harris Interactive's Patient PharmaAssessment service suggests that this "OTC-ing" of NSAs could be a sizable barrier to their widespread use, unless the drug companies involved reduced their prices on these products.

The Harris data are drawn from a nationwide survey of 4,156 NSA consumers, and show that 83% of these have insurance which covers part of the cost of these medicines, and that 82% of these people paid $25 or less for their NSA prescriptions. Only 18% paid more than $25.