Duchesnay's new nod for menopause drug Osphena prompts website revamp

In January, Duchesnay’s Osphena got the FDA nod to treat moderate to severe vaginal dryness caused by vulvar and vaginal atrophy (VVA) in menopausal women, adding to the drug’s original approval to treat dyspareunia or painful intercourse among the same group. And now, the new indication has inspired a new website for the menopause drug.

The new site offers expanded information and a better user experience with faster downloads, more intuitive navigation and more colorful visuals, Melanie Lussier, Duchesnay's vice president of corporate affairs and communications, said in an email interview.

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On the website, Duchesnay features three videos from its new paid spokesperson gynecologist Barb Dupree talking about the causes and signs around the vaginal symptoms of menopause. As an adjunct, Duchesnay is currently analyzing data from a recent study it did in partnership with FabOverFifty.com about treatment preferences for women experiencing menopause symptoms such as vaginal dryness. Those results will be released next month, Lussier said.

Duchesnay acquired the rights to market Osphena in the U.S. and Canada from Shionogi in March 2017. The drug has a boxed warning regarding endometrial cancer and cardiovascular disorders. Shionogi spent millions trying to spur the market for Osphena—including $38 million in TV ads alone, according to real-time TV ad tracker iSpot.tv data—before selling it to Duchesnay.

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Osphena was first approved in 2013 and at the time, analysts pegged peak sales at $495 million by 2017. Duchesnay is a private company and does not report sales publicly, but its website says the drug has been prescribed “over 1 million times since its launch in 2013.”

While Osphena is a non-hormonal product, its primary competition is low-dose estrogen creams and vaginal rings including Allergan's Estrace, Pfizer's Premarin and Novo Nordisk's Vagifem.