Shining Success : T/I Pharmaceuticals’ Sunscreen Is a Hit With Dermatologists

About a year ago, some top merchandisers at a major health products distributor were astonished to discover that their top-selling sunscreen was one they had done nothing to promote.

The low-profile product, TI-Screen, is manufactured by T/I Pharmaceuticals Inc., a tiny Irvine firm.

Despite scant consumer advertising, TI-Screen has built a following in California’s highly competitive sun-lotion market by relying almost entirely upon the recommendations of dermatologists.

“It is what you call a sleeper,” said Jeanne McKay, manager of merchandising for Bergen Brunswig, an Orange-based health care products distributor.

McKay said she was surprised by the strong showing of TI-Screen when she looked up the company’s sales statistics at the request of Lou Silverman, a former Revlon executive from New York who was checking out T/I Pharmaceuticals as a potential career opportunity.

TI-Screen is not a big-league player among sunscreens. It has captured only about 1.1% of the national market, compared to Coppertone’s 21%, according to a survey by Pipeline Research, a market research firm in Wayne, N.J.

And it is handicapped by its name, which lacks both widespread public recognition and marketing flair.

According to one insider, TI stands for “ten investors”--sales alumni from Syntex Laboratories in Palo Alto who formed T/I Pharmaceuticals in 1979 to market moisturizers and shampoos.

In 1980, T/I acquired the rights to a sunscreen formula developed by a research team at Harvard Medical School. TI-Screen, which is manufactured on a contract basis by other firms, made its market debut in 1983.

Controlling ownership of T/I Pharmaceuticals was acquired in 1986 by Webber Inc., a small, privately owned pharmaceutical firm in Toronto, Canada.

T/I lacks the marketing clout of such corporations as Plough Inc., which owns Coppertone, or Bristol Meyers, which has another major sun lotion product, PreSun, in its stable of skin-care products.

Silverman, formerly vice president of major sales accounts for Revlon’s fragrances and cosmetics, said T/I suffered in the past from mismanagement and marketing blunders.

Among other things, he said, it failed to capitalize on its once unique status as the first effective sunscreen based on a formula that contains no Para-aminobenzoic acid, which irritates the skin of some users.

Nonetheless, Silverman said he was so impressed by the quality of T/I’s products and their backing by dermatologists that he accepted an offer a year ago to become a consultant to the firm. In February, he took on the job of general manager.

So far, Silverman has managed to make T/I Pharmaceuticals more profitable and has launched more aggressive consumer advertising that stresses the importance of using sun protectors to guard against skin cancer and wrinkles.

He estimated that the company’s sales will double to $3 million this year from $1.5 million in 1987. He said the company has also rebounded from a loss of about $340,000 in 1987 to a profit of about $318,000 through June of this year.

Silverman has cut back the company’s thinly spread national sales staff and concentrated marketing of TI-Screen in California, which now represents 80% of the sunscreen’s sales.

T/I Pharmaceuticals has begun sponsoring free cancer screenings at drugstores and is passing out samples and product brochures at sports events such as a surfing invitational in Solana Beach and a Ladies Professional Golf Assn. tournament in San Jose. TI-Screen also has begun advertising on local radio and cable television sports programs.

The company is basing its marketing strategy on “educating” the public. Silverman says consumers no longer will buy products based on lighthearted sales pitches, such as the playful dog pulling at a tot’s swimsuit in traditional Coppertone ads.

“It is not a joke anymore,” he said. “People die from skin cancer.”

The change of pace at T/I hasn’t gone unrecognized in the industry. Malcolm Proudfoot, toiletries buyer for Chicago-based Osco Drug Inc., said that for the first time, all Osco stores on the West Coast will be required next summer to stock four TI-Screen lotions, including one for infants. The increased stocking is being implemented in response to customer demand, he said.

Mitchel Goldman, a San Diego dermatologist, said when he recommended TI-Screen to his patients several years ago, “they could never find it” in drugstores.

Goldman said he was among the young doctors that T/I Pharmaceuticals salesmen began courting in the early 1980s. At the time, he was a resident in dermatology at UCLA Medical School. “They really won the hearts of dermatologists,” he said.

Sales Up by 34%

Jim Greenhaus, general manager of Pipeline Research, which tracks sales of over-the-counter and prescription drugs, said that T/I Pharmaceuticals sold 34% more bottles of sunscreen during the 12 months ended in May than it did during the previous 12 months.

During the same time period, he said, sales of TI-Screen ranked 13th among 34 major brands of sun lotion, “which is really impressive because its distribution is primarily in California.”

Greenhaus said TI-Screen sells best in California, where it has more than 8% of the market in a survey area including Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Fresno and San Francisco. In Los Angeles, he said, TI-Screen’s market share was 11.6%. In San Diego it ranked first with 14.6%.

TI-Screen, which is designed to be used as a sun blocker rather than as a bronzing ointment, also has benefited from the public’s increased awareness of the harm caused by exposure to the sun--an awareness that marketing experts say is growing faster in California than in other parts of the country.

And while sunscreens traditionally have been removed from drugstore shelves after Labor Day, market researchers said they are beginning to gain acceptance as year-round health aids.

According to Nielsen Marketing Research, the entire sun protection market has grown 13% to 14% annually over the last 2 years. That market now generates annual sales of more than $332 million nationally.

Also, Nielsen reports that sales have shifted toward lotions marketed as sun blockers. Those products account for 51% of all sun lotions this year, up from 29% in 1981.

Greenhaus said T/I is “in the right market at the right time with the right product.”

Control Acquired in ’86

Lyle Merrell, chief executive of Webber Inc., said that in 1986 his firm bought a controlling interest in T/I as a vehicle for launching U.S. sales of Webber’s skin-care products, which include a skin moisturizer and cold sore medicine. But he said he also is anxious to make the most of T/I’s best seller, TI-Screen.

Merrell said T/I Pharmaceuticals lost money in 1987 because its sales force expanded too rapidly in a bid to achieve a broader geographic presence.

Merrell said that since Silverman subsequently took command of the company, he has made “a significant difference” by doing “a mix of things” to increase distribution of T/I Pharmaceuticals’ products in California.

Silverman said he plans to take another stab at making TI-Screen a national brand. But that ambition will be very difficult to achieve, said Allen Mottus, a marketing consultant to the health and beauty aids industry.

“You need a distribution network and advertising and marketing clout behind it,” Mottus said. Because the sunscreen market is expanding, he added, the major corporations will zealously protect their market share.

Regarding T/I’s national aspirations, Mottus asked, “Can a flea attack an elephant?”

Silverman conceded that he has no intention of trying to butt heads with the big national brands in an advertising war, which he figures would cost him about $10 million a year--far more money than T/I can muster.

Also, Silverman said that while TI-Screen was the the first high-protection, Paba-free sunscreen to go on the market in 1983, it has been joined by many other brands of sunscreens that are similarly effective and Paba-free.

‘They Are Not Unique’

“They are good, but they are not unique. They have ingredients that many of the others use,” said Dr. Nicholas Lowe, professor of dermatology at the UCLA School of Medicine. Lowe said he recommends TI-Screen along with a number of other sunscreens to his patients.

Nonetheless, Silverman said he plans to make the most of TI-Screen’s acceptance by dermatologists, whom he is counting on to help expand TI-Screen’s market. “There are 5,000 practicing dermatologists in the country, each of whom sees 40 to 50 patients a day,” he said.

Also, TI-Screen is coming out soon with a zippier package. And within the next year, Silverman said he will launch a radio advertising blitz and hire more field salesmen with the aim of bolstering TI-Screen sales in Florida, Texas, New England and New York. In addition, the company plans to introduce the product in five more states, for a total of 14.