What are OTC Medicines?
OTC medicines, an acronym for “Over The Counter” are all those medicines that can be displayed to the public and be purchased independently by the patient in pharmacies, para pharmacies, corners inside shops, or online pharmacies.
In many countries, OTCs must be approved by a government agency, which guarantees their efficacy and safety, especially since they are often used without medical supervision. As OTCs are regulated on the basis of the active ingredient, pharmaceutical companies have the freedom to formulate new active ingredients, combine them at will, and even patent their dosage.
In some countries, some OTCs may have special regulations, such as being sold by a pharmacist only after the need for the medicine has been ascertained or following patient education.
OTCs provide symptomatic relief for millions of people who would not otherwise seek treatment. In the US, 93% of adults prefer to treat their minor ailments with OTC medications before seeking professional help, and every dollar spent on OTC drugs saves the US healthcare system about $7.20 on average.
How are OTC catalogs made?
The OTC catalogs are documents in PDF format that are sent by health insurance to their members who have acquired a plan including the OTCs. Usually, these catalogs are divided into two or three parts. In the first part, we find:
- Information about the service,
- How to place your order, usually by sending a letter with the order or directly online
- The numbers to call if you need help.
The second and third parts are instead the actual parts of the catalog or where the drugs are listed. The second part usually consists of the list of best-selling medicines. The layout used comprises a photo of the drug and useful information for ordering: drug name, quantity, price, and article code.
The third part presents the drugs in tabular form, without the photo. In this layout, the products are divided by categories, such as Cold, Flue & Allergy, Dental & Denture Care, and more.
How to optimize the creation of OTC catalogs?
Very often, those who produce OTC catalogs do not create one catalog a year, but several hundred. We’re talking about thousands of hours of work for graphic designers, who have to copy and paste the data in Excel files into InDesign, with the risk of making mistakes that can be very serious, especially if the price transcription is wrong.
To optimize this process, the OTC Catalog Software developed by Pagination comes in handy. It’s a powerful cloud solution that allows you to create the final PDF in minutes.
To do this, you only need two things:
- InDesign Package File (template, fonts, and links)
- Data File
InDesign Package File
What Pagination needs is the InDesign package file (a special type of export that contains the OTC catalog template along with the fonts and project links). The template can be created directly by you, by a freelance graphic designer, by a communication agency, or by the Pagination team. The template will include all the layouts you want to automate such as:
- Cover,
- Table of Contents,
- Product pages,
- Alphabetical index, and more.
Data File
Then you need to have a data file containing all the product information that you want to automatically import into the document:
- Categories,
- Product name,
- Image name,
- Price,
- Quantity, etc.
Let’s go!
Once the project materials have been sent to the Pagination team, you will be able to use the tool within a couple of weeks! You’ll upload your data file and assets, and Pagination will automatically generate your OTC catalogs in both InDesign and PDF formats (web-ready and ready-to-print)!
Seeing is believing!
