Infirst Healthcare’s Flarin® is the winner of the CHi Award for Innovation of the Year, with one judge describing the medicine for flaring joint pain and inflammation as a “potential game changer”.

Infirst Healthcare Ltd has announced that Flarin® (lipid-formulated ibuprofen) has been awarded Innovation of the Year at the recent OTCToolbox Consumer Healthcare Industry (CHi) Awards (28th February 2019), with one judge describing the medicine for flaring joint pain and inflammation as a “potential game changer”.

“Known drugs – made better” is how Infirst Healthcare sums up its approach to OTC innovation. Speaking to OTCToolbox, Chief Executive Officer Manfred Scheske said the OTC industry needed to rethink its approach to innovation, buy into the concept of constantly improving drugs and treatments, and be ready to conduct clinical trials to generate evidence. “Only then will the industry be able to fully unlock its fantastic potential,” he commented.

Karen Stoner, Consumer Marketing Director of Infirst Healthcare Limited commented that “This award recognises the importance of bringing real innovation to the OTC joint pain category where there has been very little true innovation for more than a decade”.

The judges clearly agreed, one judge who gave Flarin® the maximum five points said the product “impacts one of the largest OTC categories and has the potential to be multi-country”. Flarin® served a “large consumer base of dissatisfied sufferers”, continued this judge, adding that it was “another option in the quest to reduce opioid consumption”. According to this judge, Flarin® was a “potential game changer in chronic pain/oral analgesics”. A second judge, Tim Brady of Thornton & Ross, observed there was “so little innovation in analgesia”. “To invest so much in improving the safety and efficacy of one we use already was high risk but could be a huge benefit to patients,” he said. A third judge said Flarin® could “empower more pain sufferers to self-care rather than having to visit the doctor for prescription pain relief”.

Consumers may believe that they have a wide range of products available to them but on closer inspection the active ingredients of the orally active options (paracetamol, ibuprofen and combination products) have remained relatively unchanged for more than a decade. Innovation in the joint pain management category has focussed almost entirely on improving topical delivery (e.g.

improved packaging, patches etc). With the increasing awareness of the risks associated with the over use of codeine containing products the oral options for consumers who cannot tolerate or do not obtain sufficient pain relief with the currently available products is limited.

About Flarin®

Flarin® was launched by Infirst Healthcare Ltd in January 2018.

Due to its patented, lipid-formulation technology and complex manufacturing process, Flarin® appears to be absorbed differently by the body, which helps to shield the stomach from damage.1, 3

According to the FLARE (FLaring Arthralgia Relief Evaluation study), 1200mg/day of lipid ibuprofen (Flarin®) was shown to be as effective as prescription-strength ibuprofen (2400 mg/day) at reducing joint pain.  In addition, taking two capsules (400 mg) of Flarin® three times a day for five days gave 86% of patients’ improvement in their flare-ups2. Patients also reported a reduction in stiffness and swelling.1 No other oral OTC analgesic delivers highly effective joint pain relief and helps shield the stomach from damage.

Flarin® is indicated for a wide range of conditions including the relief of rheumatic or muscular pain, back pain, and the pain of non-serious arthritic conditions, caused by swelling, stiffness and inflammation.

For more information about Flarin®, visit www.flarin.co.uk or www.facebook.com/FlarinUK/

 

About infirst Healthcare Ltd

Infirst Healthcare is a small, international healthcare company, based in London. It focuses on breathing new life into well-established medicines for everyday ailments: ‘making known drugs better’. The company is also committed to bringing innovation and efficacy to the consumer healthcare and primary care markets – which have seen very few, new products in recent times. As well as working in the field of inflammatory pain, infirst Healthcare works in the field of cough and colds and GI (digestive) symptoms.  http://www.infirst.co.uk/

References

  1. Bierma -Zeinstra SMA, Conaghan PG, Brew J et al. Osteoarthr Cartil: 2017 25; 12: 1942–1951 Open Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joca.2017.09.002 Accessed at: http://www.oarsijournal.com/article/S1063-4584(17)31197-4/fulltext
  2. Accessed Oct 2018 at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/osteoarthritis/
  3. NL Trevaskis et al. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. Volume 14, November 2015: 781