Kenvue, makers of Benadryl, is pioneering ‘Cough Clinics’, an industry-first initiative in association with the Association of Physicians of India (API). As part of this scientific initiative, Kenvue plans to establish 10 Cough Centres of Excellence across India. These centres will run ‘Cough Clinics’ with an aim to scale knowledge on scientific best practices around cough evaluation and expand its usage in treatment.
The first Cough Centre of Excellence has been launched in Mumbai at BSES Hospital, Andheri.
In India, the average adult experiences about three episodes of cough per year while children may experience 7-10 episodes per year. Despite high occurrence of coughs and respiratory illnesses, 70% individuals receive experience-based therapy without a confirmed diagnosis as confirmed in an article published in Journal of Association of Physicians of India.
With an aim to address this gap, ‘Cough Clinics’ by Kenvue and API seek to redefine cough evaluation and management by equipping health care professionals with a simplified, science-backed approach rooted in symptom categorization. ‘Cough Clinics’ will focus on bringing updated evidence on cough, relevant molecules, and present it in case-based modules to enable practitioners to deploy it in day-to-day treatment by learning to decode cough sounds.
The Cough Clinics will comprise of three learning modules. Each module is designed to focus on specific aspects of cough evaluation, sound recognition, treatment decision-making, and rational treatment. The content has been curated and validated by experts from the Association of Physicians of India (API), and each session will be anchored by leading Pulmonologists.
Every participating physician will undergo a thorough assessment to measure the knowledge shift as well as a Net Promoter Score (NPS) will be collected to evaluate experience and effectiveness.
At the heart of the initiative is the Cough Categorisation Tool, a practical diagnostic aid developed by leading national experts and published in the Journal of the Association of Physicians of India (JAPI) in 2024. This tool enables physicians to classify coughs as either wet, dry, or multi-symptom, along with red flag signs and tiggers, and then proceed with rational, symptom-targeted treatment.
Following the Mumbai launch, the initiative will roll out in key cities including Lucknow, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Kolkata in the coming months, with a plan to reach 1000 plus practitioners in the launch year.
