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GSK launches Panadol Extra with Optizorb in bid for bigger market share

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A GlaxoSmithKline facility. FILE PHOTO | NMG

GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare East Africa has unveiled a new product in the Panadol range targeting to increase their market share in the analgesic category.

Known as Panadol Extra with Optizorb, this latest innovation contains a novel formulation that combines paracetamol, caffeine and ‘Optizorb’ technology to create a product that is absorbed faster in the stomach.
With speed and strength being the two most widely sought-after attributes for consumers who want pain relief, the Panadol Extra with Optizorb’s proposition has three times more pain relieving medicine in the first 30 mins when its needed most.

Speaking during the official launch in Nairobi, GSK Consumer Healthcare East Africa General Manager Debra Mallowah said the product that meets Kenyan consumers’ need for fast, effective pain relief.

She said the product was part of GSK's strategy to grow its share of the multi billion shilling paracetamol market.

“The move is informed by local research we carried out recently, and which showed that more than 90 per cent of adults choose a pain relief brand on the basis of the speed and strength with which it relieves their pain and discomfort,” she said.

She added that the firm had also established from an independent global research that 85 per cent of people using analgesics suffered from body and head pain.

“The survey by Edelman Research subsequently developed a Global Pain Index which revealed that everyday pain has a huge ripple effect beyond the sufferer and affects personal, social and family relationships,” she explained.

She noted that GSK will seek to strengthen its pole position in the pain management category by carrying out an elaborate national communication campaign to educate consumers, traders and pharmacists about the new product and its key features.

With today’s evolving lifestyles, consumers are increasingly faced with a myriad of pain and the clinically proven efficacy and safety of a product is paramount for them.

The Optizorb technology in Panadol Extra enables faster disintegration of the caplet, in the process getting absorbed faster.

It changes the way tablets are absorbed, through its combination of algenic acid and calcium carbonate that activates the disintegration system, working effectively to release its medicine faster to relieve the pain while still being gentle on the stomach.

The rapid disintegration and dissolution provided by the Optizorb leads to faster absorption.