Z-Day: Zantac 75 Goes OTC In The USA

April 23 was Z-Day, the day over-the-counter Zantac 75 (ranitidine) became available in the USA. Warner Wellcome Consumer Healthcare's advertising budget is put at $100 million for an elaborate broadcast and print campaign by J Walter Thompson New York, supplemented with stunts like windows of city buildings lit to form Zs. This will, notes the New York Times, "seek to burn Z-Day into the minds of consumers with an intensity matched perhaps only by the acid that burns into their stomachs."

Other antics include projecting images from commercials onto buildings, and 10 "Rallies for Relief," at which consumers can decide who most deserves heartburn relief.

Market "Is Primed" Warner Wellcome has high hopes for Zantac 75, even though it was beaten to the market by two other switches, Pepcid AC (famotidine) and Tagamet HB (cimetidine). Since Zantac has been the prescription product of choice in the last five years, the market is primed, says Bob Casale, vice president for GI marketing at Warner Wellcome. On Z-Day, market leader Pepcid AC said it had reached over $200 million in retail sales and was thus the most successful switch to date, while Mr Casale noted that Zantac 75 "has already achieved more than $100 million in retail orders right out of the gate."