Increasing access to nonprescription medicines: a global public health challenge and opportunity.

As escalating health-care costs continue to be a focus of public discourse, the populace has become increasingly attentive to its own health and lifestyle choices. Nonprescription (over-the-counter, OTC) medicines represent an important option in this evolving environment and, through novel "Rx-to-OTC" switch efforts, could expand beyond their traditional role in symptomatic relief of common conditions such as minor pain, coughs, colds, heartburn, and allergy. This is certainly not a new concept. In fact, the self-care movement has roots reaching into the past century. Pharmaceutical companies and their consumer-product subsidiaries or partners have long considered and, when feasible, invested in difficult OTC switch development programs.