New pill offers relief from fever, pain for 12 hours

Ahmedabad-based Lincoln Pharma on Monday launched the long acting paracetamol pill of 1,000 mg 'Pa12' for sustained relief from fever and pain for 12 hours.

"Based on novel drug delivery system, two dosage of 'Pa 12' in a day are sufficient for patients to control fever and pain instead of taking 3-4 tablets of conventional oral paracetamol pills," Lincoln Pharmaceuticals managing director Rajani G Patel told reporters while launching the pill.

"This sustained release (SR) bi-layered tablet has been programmed in such a way that 300 mg gets released in one shot, while remaining 700 mg is released in blood over 12 hours slowly maintaining prescribed 3mcg/ml therapeutic levels for safer longer action," he said.

"The over the counter (OTC) drug developed by the company would be available at 60,000 retail chemist outlets pan-India," Patel said.

According to Patel, the Paracetamol molecule has been formulated after extensive research in such a way that it will have 20 per cent less toxicity levels as compared to other brands of the drug available in the market.

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"The drug (Pa 12) is free from side affects of conventional paracetamol tablets," Patel claimed.

"Prior to approval from regulator we conducted clinical trials of the drug on 500 persons, and after the nod of Drug Controller General of India trials were conducted on close to 2,000 people, the results have been very encouraging," he claimed.

The estimated market of prescribed Paracetamol drug in India is pegged close to Rs 200-250 crore (Rs 2-2.5 billion).

The company has set an ambitious target of achieving Rs 20 crore (Rs 200 million) sales in first year of the launch of this novel drug.

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"We have already filed application with the drug authorities of countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar for introducing this drug and expect to launch 'Pa 12' there shortly," Patel said.

The company has two WHO-GMP certified manufacturing facility at Khatrej in Gujarat, besides one R & D section.

"The two existing facilities have also been approved by the drug authorities of Latin and Central America, besides East and West Africa," Patel claimed.

The company that markets close to 20 brands and has presence in 25 countries overseas, expects to clock a revenue of Rs 170-180 crore (Rs 1.70-1.80 billion) by this fiscal end.