Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 13, 1992 TAG: 9203130260
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But, Marion Merrell Dow Inc. misfigured.
A month after Nicoderm was introduced, its first-step, 21-milligram patch has proven so popular it is being rationed.
"I'm sure there're people who can't find it," said Bob Williams, pharmacist at Revco's Towers Shopping Center store.
Williams didn't have any of the patches to sell Thursday and neither did several other drug stores polled.
Clay Partin, pharmacist at the Revco on Brambleton Avenue, said he had been out of Nicoderm for two weeks.
Phar-Mor in Roanoke also was out of it, said technician Laurie Griggs. The drug store chain's supplier, Fox Meyer Wholesale Co. in Jacksonville, Fla. - the third-largest drug wholesaler in the country - has been waiting in line like everyone else for more of the product.
"It's something to wear and you don't have to worry about it," said Debbie Cox with Fox Meyer.
Production and demand are so close that Marion Merrell Dow is bypassing usual distribution channels and shipping Nicoderm to individual drugstores via next-day air express, a spokeswoman said.
Around-the-clock production at its Palo Alto, Calif., plant can't meet demand of smokers willing to pay up to $25 a week to get off the weed.
In fact, the price - equal to the cost of about two packs of cigarettes a day - appears to be the only complaint about Nicoderm and its competitors, Habitrol and ProStep.
The three timed-release nicotine patch products were introduced at about the same time and cost about the same. The differences are in the quantities in which they're packaged and in the support programs offered by their manufacturers.
Habitrol, made by the Basel Pharmaceuticals division of Ciba-Geigy, is packaged in a month's supply. Nicoderm comes in a two-week supply. And ProStep, manufactured by Elan Corp. of Ireland and marketed by the Lederle Laboratories division of American Cyanamid, comes in a one-week supply.
ProStep is available only in 22-milligram strength, making it more popular with heavy smokers. Habitrol and Nicoderm come in three strengths, with 21 milligrams the greatest.
All are catching on with the consumer, with ProStep lagging the others probably only because it came out last, said Sharon Scott, pharmacist at Brambleton Drug in Roanoke.
Wearers speak glowingly of the patches' effectiveness.
"I've tried quitting before," said one Nicoderm user who declined to be identified. "I was hypnotized and everything. And I was just crazy for a cigarette. With these, you think about it, but there's no craving."
The companies are doing high-profile advertising and promoting the prescription patches directly to the consumer in magazines such as People and Sports Illustrated as well as through newspapers and television.
The Reuter Business Report said sales of the patches could exceed $400 million a year.
Last December, Ciba-Geigy kicked off Habitrol by dropping a 20-foot inflated cigarette from atop a New York City building into a giant plastic ashtray. It handed out T-shirts to passersby who vowed to stop smoking and threw their cigarettes into the ashtray.
Actress Lauren Bacall, a former smoker, testifies that she quit with ProStep.
The companies have a potential market of 50 million smokers, many of whom want to quit. A poll conducted for Lederle by Louis Harris Associates showed that 80 percent of current smokers have tried to quit and 76 percent think they are "somewhat likely" to quit in the next five years. And 46 percent said it's "very likely."
Lederle has gone all out with its anti-smoking campaign. It offers an education program through pharmacists and provides a hot line for one-on-one counseling for customers.
Spokesman Jeff Hoyak said the company is stressing the need for customers to battle psychological dependence on nicotine while the patch fights the physical dependence.
The idea of using pure nicotine to help smokers stop was first tried in the mid-1980s with a nicotine-laced chewing gum, Nicorette.
The gum didn't catch on mainly because heavy smokers couldn't get enough nicotine from it and users complained of sore gums and upset stomachs.
So far, the most common adverse reaction to the patch is skin irritation and users are warned to apply each day's patch in a different area of the torso.
There is one other warning that needs to go with the products, however, and that's a caution about disposal of the used patches.
Pharmacist Scott said adults need to be aware that children who might pick up a discarded patch and put it on can get a dose of nicotine through the skin.
by CNB