Not All Cough Medications Are Equal: Treato Finds Brands Matter When Purchasing Over-the-Counter (OTC) Cough Medications

NEW YORK, Dec. 15, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Timed to the travel and corresponding cold and flu season, Treato, a leading consumer healthcare website, announced its first annual list of top over-the-counter (OTC) cough medications.  This list is the first in a new series of drug rankings from the company.  According to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, the internal analgesics (pain reliever/ fever reducer) category is highly profitable, taking in more than $3.8 billion over the past year. Reckitt Benckiser's Mucinex brands dominate the list with their formulations taking three of the top four spots. Mucinex D took the number one spot, Mucinex took the third spot and Mucinex DM took the fourth spot on the list. 

Treato found that brand marketing plays a large role in consumers' experiences of cough medications as products with the same formulations placed in significantly different spots on the list. Both Mucinex and Robitussin have the same primary active ingredient; yet Mucinex placed third on the list and Robitussin placed seventh on the list, although Robitussin DM took the fifth spot. Reckitt Benckiser and Pfizer were the manufacturers to dominate the list taking all spots on the list except for one.

Top Treato-ranked OTC Cough Medications:

"Reckitt Benckiser's investment in DTC advertising is clearly paying off as consumers are disproportionately discussing their brands online, " says Ido Hadari, CEO of Treato.  "We hope that by identifying and ranking over-the-counter cold medications based on other consumer's experiences we are able to help them navigate the drugstore aisles when searching for cold relief."

Find out more about Treato's over-the-counter cough medication rankings

Treato's Methodology:

TreatoVoice is a unique data asset that continuously collects and analyzes more than two billion patient and caregiver conversations happening across the Internet to understand what patients are saying about their experiences with their conditions and treatments.  Within TreatoVoice, we have the capability to algorithmically identify and rank patients' experiences with medications within their Web posts based on the following methodologies:

• Treato Satisfaction scores are overall drug scores that are calculated based on a ratio of positive to negative reviews about a medication with weight given to the volume and recency of conversations happening online.
• Treato Concern scores are calculated based on the percentage of patient online conversations that raise a concern or discuss a side effect in the conversation compared to all of the conversations about the brand happening online.

For more about Treato scores, please visit: https://treato.com/treato-drug-scores

About Treato:

Treato™, the leading source of health insights from millions of real health consumers, uses patented analytics and big data technology to turn billions of disparate online conversations into meaningful social intelligence. With more than two billion posts analyzed and continuously expanding, Treato has partnered with 9 out of the world's top 10 pharma companies as well as numerous other multi-national pharmaceutical companies and healthcare organizations. Treato.com, its consumer website, helps millions of visitors each month.

Treato is privately held with offices in Israel, New York and Princeton, NJ. Investors include Reed Elsevier Ventures, OrbiMed Partners and New Leaf Venture Partners, among others. For more information please visit https://treato.com/ 

CONTACT:
Allyson Noonan
Media Relations Manager
+1(858) 245-7256
[email protected]

Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20151214/295787-INFO

SOURCE Treato

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