A court in Australia has ordered drug giant Reckitt Benckiser to stop selling some of its popular Nurofen painkiller brands after finding tablets marketed for specific complaints such as back pain or migraines contained exactly the same active ingredient, The Guardian reports.
A court in Australia has ordered drug giant Reckitt Benckiser to stop selling some of its popular Nurofen painkiller brands after finding tablets marketed for specific complaints such as back pain or migraines contained exactly the same active ingredient, The Guardian reports.
The paper says that the Australian federal court ruled that the British-based multinational had made misleading claims when selling its Nurofen Back Pain, Nurofen Period Pain, Nurofen Migraine Pain and Nurofen Tension Headache products. The court ordered that the products should be removed from shops within three months. A subsequent court hearing will decide on a possible fine for the company.
As BBC mentions the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) research also found that in Australia the products were sold for almost double the price of Nurofen's standard product.
Aomesh Bhatt, head of regulatory and medical affairs for Reckitt Benckiser in Europe, said the company did not set out to mislead consumers and was cooperating with the ACCC and the federal court. It was, he said, an “Australia-only issue” with no implications for UK sales.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World at One, Bhatt explained the company’s reasoning for branding the same ingredient under multiple names: “Consumers want the navigation in a grocery environment, where there’s no healthcare professional to assist in the decision-making. We know that 90% of consumers look for a specific type of product for their individual pain.”
