Merck Annual Report 2000

    Perceived by many industry observers to be just one more entry in the already over-crowded hypertension field at launch in 1995, Cozaar and Hyzaar (combination of losartan and hydrochlorothoriazide) continue to outpace the competition. This year they moved from fourth to third place in the $20 billion global anti-hypertension market and remain on course for the top spot. They continue to lead all competition in the AIIA class of anti-hypertensives by more than a two-to-one margin.
    Our anti-hypertensives continue to do very well throughout the world. But nowhere has the performance of Cozaar been more dramatic than in Japan where it is called Nu-Lotan. We launched five years after the hypertensive market leader, against whom we benchmarked our progress. Our medicine has halved the leader’s lead in just 30 months.
    These successes stem from both the quality of the product and the focus and coordination of our global marketing effort. Before the launch of Cozaar, despite the wide number of medicines available in this field, doctor and patient satisfaction was not extraordinarily high. We are deriving huge benefits from our ability to effectively communicate the benefits of Cozaar/Hyzaar to physicians via evidence-based marketing. This effort is reinforced by physicians’ own clinical experience and Merck’s studies that show Cozaar/Hyzaar, with a highly selective mechanism of action, are highly effective and offer superior tolerability when compared to certain other classes of anti-hypertensives.
    Last year, Marketing surveyed 2,000 doctors in 11 countries over nine months to see how they felt about Cozaar/Hyzaar. Their response was highly favorable for both efficacy and tolerability compared to competing products.
    To reinforce our leadership position, we are conducting extensive trials to explore additional opportunities. One study in African-Americans with high blood pressure suggests that Cozaar and Hyzaar are effective in this population of patients with particularly difficult-to-treat hypertension. Also, we have 15,000 more patients in global trials designed to evaluate the ability of Cozaar/Hyzaar to improve survival rates and reduce disabilities associated with heart attacks. These trials will be completed within two years.

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