Aspirin is celebrating its 125^th anniversary this year. To find out what brand owner Bayer Consumer Health is doing to celebrate this occasion, and what it is doing to take the brand into the next 125 years, HBW Insight chats with the company’s senior vice president, Global Head Allergy, Cough/Cold, Pain and Heart Health, Reese Fitzpatrick, and head of R&D, North America and Therapeutics, Rachel Koontz.

In this episode of HBW Insight's Over the Counter podcast, we chat with women’s health start-up The SABI about the power of herbal medicine for hormonal wellness.

In this episode of HBW Insight's Over the Counter podcast, we unpack the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) with the help of ESG expert Jasper Crone, drilling down into exactly what consumer health companies need to know about this enormously complex and significant piece of EU legislation.

Focus and persistence are the keys to successful brand and company growth, according to TheOTCLab's founder and CEO Albert Swane, speaking to HBW Insight's Over The Counter podcast. 

In this episode of the updated Over The Counter podcast, HBW Insight speaks to sustainable packaging expert Tony Perrotta about the complexities of replacing plastic pill packs in medicines packaging. Perrotta is a partner at PA Consulting, which set up the Blister Pack Collective alongside consumer health players Haleon, Bayer and Sanofi. They are working with PulPac, which has invented a dry molded fiber alternative to plastic, which the Collective hopes to commercialize within 12-24 months. We discuss whether regulators will accept such alternatives, given the safety and stability requirements for medicines, and the challenges of recycling, given the multitude of different frameworks and processes across the world. Perrotta also reveals that one of the partners in PA Consulting’s Bottle Collective, which hopes to replace plastic bottles in the food, personal care and consumer health industries, will soon launch its first market trial.

“Consumers are rewriting the rules when it comes to where they are going for information and the type of information they are looking for,” reports Kaizo’s Anita Nahal, speaking to HBW Insight’s Over the Counter podcast about the agency’s latest Communicating Health Messages report. Trust in social media has increased, and personal beliefs and lived experiences are playing a larger role in shaping attitudes to health information, explains Nahal, who is director at the London-based PR agency. However, consumers are also continuing to “tune-out” from health messages and be less critical of sources. To help consumers navigate this new reality, consumer health companies need to adapt, rethink and reset their communication strategies, Nahal advises.

In this episode, HBW Insight’s Europe and US editors bring their expertise to bear on the current the trend towards standalone OTC companies in global consumer health. We look at four major players: Haleon, which separated from GSK almost two years ago; Kenvue, soon to celebrate its first anniversary as a new company; Sanofi Consumer Healthcare, which is poised to split from its pharma parent; and Bayer, which has decided to buck the trend, holding on to its consumer health division. We discuss some of the advantages of becoming a standalone company, for example in leaning into a wider concept of self-care.

In this episode, HBW Insight dives into personalized wellness with Marni Allen, chief marketing officer at tailored supplements manufacturer Bioniq. Named as one of EY UK's 50 Women to Watch in 2022, Allen has over 20 years’ experience in consumer healthcare, and is now working with Bioniq to create the next generation of bespoke wellness products for consumers across the world. As well as its top tier at-home blood test-based service, Bioniq also offers an affordable questionnaire-based option, which leverages the power of AI to analyse users’ nutritional needs and provide unique supplement formulations in the post. Although personalized wellness is still somewhat niche, Allen suggests that AI-based models like Bioniq offer an attractive option for traditional consumer health companies looking to get into this fast-growing market.