Tolnaftate

It seems anti-fungal remedies will continue to drive growth in foot care. At least two companies relatively new to the OTC foot care set utilize technologies that would allow anti-fungal remedies to attack fungus at its source.

"You can't treat that disease state with a topical [remedy]," claimed Jim Murphy, president and chief executive officer of Bentley Pharmaceuticals. "The problem is it doesn't permeate." Bentley Pharmaceuticals is in the later developmental stages of a product that would penetrate an anti-fungal agent "through the nail plate and ... into the surrounding skin." This is important, according to Murphy, because although nail fungus is most visible in the nail, the problem is actually rooted within the digits.

Bentley is looking at applications for both the prescription drug and the OTC markets.

Without a consumer healthcare division of its own, Bentley will be looking to "license [the new technology] to some of the Larger, multinational companies," Murphy noted. The company hopes to have it in the market sometime next year.

"We're well into the progression of full studies," Murphy said. "The problem is in order to make a claim of total cure, you have to wait for the entire toenail or fingernail to grow out."

BioChemics currently has an athlete's foot remedy on the market, that takes advantage of its patented PentoCore transdermal drug delivery system. Containing the active ingredient tolnaftate, deFeet penetrates deep into the skin tissue and into the blood stream.

"We're really excited about deFeet in particular because the [anti-fungal] market is so fragmented," explained David Mauro, senior vice president of sales and marketing at BioChemics. "You still have a lot of customers who will bounce from product to product because of the reoccurrence of the infection."

DeFeet was test-marketed in Eckerd stores in Florida last year and has been picked up by that chain for national distribution, the company noted.

BioChemics recently kicked off a consumer ad program to support the launch, and the company has an additional foot care remedy in the works for retail launch next year.

Novartis may have sparked a marketing trend with its recent push into foot care devices that trade on the Lamasil name.

Jaime Divine, vice president of marketing at W.F. Young, makers of the Absorbine Jr. line, expressed an interest in tying the brand to a line of foot care devices.

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