The Hindu Business Line : Pfizer’s smoking cessation drug rolled out

New product: Mr Kewal Handa, Managing Director, Pfizer India (left), with Dr Anjan Chatterjee, Medical Director, Pfizer Inc, at the launch of Champix, a revolutionary smoking cessation therapy drug, in Mumbai on Tuesday. —

Our Bureau

Mumbai, Feb. 26 Smokers looking to quit the habit now have one more option to try - Champix, Pfizer Ltd’s non-nicotine smoking cessation prescription drug that has just been launched in India.

Priced at Rs 9,500 for a 12-week therapy, Champix (varenicline) has entered the Indian market in less than two years of its launch in the US, and before its launch in neighbouring markets such as China and Japan.

The product is priced less than the US and the European markets, said Mr Kewal Handa, Managing Director, Pfizer India. Champix would be imported from Germany, attracting an import duty of about 35 per cent, he said. Pfizer, however, has a patent in India on the product, he added.

India has a tobacco-related disease burden of over Rs 24,000 crore, and by 2010 it is estimated that over one million Indians will die of smoking-related diseases, company officials said.

CONCerns

In the US, varenicline sells under the brandname Chantix, but in Europe it is sold under the Champix brandname. Earlier this year, the product was under the regulatory US Food and Drug Administration’s scanner, when it was linked with psychiatric incidents, including suicide.

Dr Anjan Chatterjee, Medical Director, Pfizer Inc, said that the company had worked with the FDA to incorporate these concerns in the labelling. Similar concerns are addressed on Champix’s product insert in Europe, as well, he said.

Smokers usually show higher inclination to psychiatric illnesses, he said. The suicide incidents came up in the post-marketing survey and not during the clinical trials, he added.

Tobacco-cessation products have not had the smoothest of runs, for example, GlaxoSmithKline’s Zyban (buproprion) too, had been linked to adverse reactions.

Pfizer, however, is confident on the benefits of the drug and representatives said that Champix in India too, will carry information on the psychiatric concerns on it’s product insert, similar to the product in Europe.

Champix was developed specifically to act on reducing nicotine craving and the pleasure of smoking. Research shows that the odds of quitting smoking on Champix are twice that of buproprion and four times that of placebo, the officials said. Though no revenue projections were made on the drug, the product is being rolled out across 17 cities in the country.

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