Blog
OTC Review 2018
Gouse Sadak, Engagement Manager – Analytics, Consumer Health
Apr 27, 2018

Many over the counter (OTC) product categories are experiencing rapid growth across the globe. OTC product sales including health and wellness products, now represent more than 10 percent of total pharmaceutical industry sales and the data indicates steady increases in both emerging and developed markets. 

This burgeoning marketplace offers huge growth potential for OTC companies and their suppliers – but only if they know how to effectively navigate the marketplace. Predicting annual OTC products sales requires data, expertise and market understanding. Sales in many of the leading categories, including cough & cold, flu, and allergy products, are affected by seasonal trends, the regulatory environment, consumer shopping behavior and the timing and severity of seasonal demands.

This affects the volume of products sold year-to-year, as well as when sales trends peak and how long they last. The variability in this space is one of the many challenges industry players face when developing business plans and identifying new markets for their OTC brands. 

To mitigate these risks, many leading OTC companies rely on global industry data, like that found in IQVIA’s OTC Review, to understand market dynamics and to identify the most promising opportunities to expand their product offering and global reach.

The OTC Review is more than just a summary of current sales statistics. This report audits IQVIA data assets from 74 countries to analyze economic and regulatory trends, track local and global performance and provide a five-year forecast for leading markets and OTC product categories. 

Data driven decisions

Having access to this level of industry knowledge can be a game-changer for OTC companies. IQVIA customers use this data to shape their annual business plans and to understand the global and local competitive dynamics they face when entering a new market or category. Many companies use these reports to identify and rank various potential market opportunities to support expansion plans and to balance portfolio risk by investing in markets with different sales growth potential. 

The report also provides our customers with competitor data, so they can benchmark sales performance against their peers, and establish realistic internal goals and forecasting for the coming year. 

Local or global options

While larger multinationals may purchase the entire data set, smaller manufacturers often acquire individual country reports to get a snapshot of their marketplace, or to understand the dynamics of specific markets as part of their expansion planning or research. Suppliers and ingredient manufacturers also use elements of the report to determine which customer, countries or product categories are likely to generate the most demand. 

Being able to purchase targeted local reports gives Smaller firms and suppliers the leverage they need to compete with global market players, and to shape their business plans. 

Before acquiring any industry report, we encourage our clients to define their objectives and the questions they want these insights to answer, and what types of information will best inform their decisions. Then once they leverage the report they will have clear metrics to define its value, which will help generate the most value for their business.

For more information about the 2018 OTC Review contact gouse.sadak@iqvia.com

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