Source: LOHAS Weekly Newsletter
Published: Monday, December 01, 1997

PHILADELPHIA—International pharmaceutical giant SmithKline Beecham Corp. (SBH) has begun market-testing in the U.S. of the 100-year-old Abtei-brand German herbal products line it acquired in 1996 for $142 million.

The test will introduce four Abtei products—saw palmetto, St. John’s wort, ginkgo biloba and ginseng—in an Ogilvy & Mather-created TV ad campaign blanketing Dallas, Minneapolis, Phoenix and San Francisco. The herbs are packaged in blister pack softgels and the labels feature “Supplement Facts” boxes, in apparent conformmity with impending FDA labeling regulations for dietary supplement products. SmithKline will decide next year on a national launch for the products.

SmithKline, with $12.4 billion in annual sales, is the third major mainstream drug company to recently enter the herbal-products market. It joins American Home Products, which has teamed with Irvine, CA-based PharmaPrint to create prescription and OTC herbal products, and Warner-Lambert, which launched its zinc and echinacea throat drops this year through its Halls and Celestial Seasonings brands.

According to Katherine Golas, director of marketing at PharmaPrint, drug giants now are interested in developing herbal remedies business because the growth rate is 20% to 25% vs. the OTC drug annual growth rate of about 5%.