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Many women should be breathing a little easier since the introduction this past summer of digital home pregnancy test kits. With time results spelled out so clearly, there will no longer be any fretting over a pink line that may or may not exist.

Suppliers such as Inverness, Church & Dwight's Armkel division and Pfizer are expecting that digital innovation will drive foot traffic into the family planning sections of drug stores next year--and they are doing their share to raise category awareness.

Inverness received approval to market its digital pregnancy tester in May, and by Oct. 5 the company already had generated sales approaching $1 million in drug stores, according to Information Resources Inc. The pregnancy test kit category as a whole was relatively flat over that period, with drug channel sales reaching $138.7 million.

It's a value-driven business. Last year women bought store-brand testers almost twice as often as the leading brand, Pfizer's e.p.t., and at a 55 percent lower price point.

So a little branded excitement could go a long way toward restoring some growth hi the coming months. "[The digital offerings are] really appealing especially to new users in the category," reported Teresa Prego, associate director of marketing for women's health at Inverness. "Because it provides greater certainty," she said. First-time users of conventional test sticks are typically unsure about interpreting the results on their first go-around, she added.

Officials at both Armkel and Pfizer declined to discuss line extensions for their respective First Response and e.p.t pregnancy test kit brands. However, Drug Store News has learned that a digital test kit is definitely in the works at Armkel, expected to bow in first quarter 2004, pending approval, and Pfizer is expected to announce some news in this space as early as this month.

Likewise, Inverness appears to have line extensions for its new digital tester planned to launch next year, but declined to shed light on any specifics. The company will, however, explore digital line extensions for its recently acquired Fact Plus brand, bought from Abbott Laboratories last month. By the end of October time deal was still awaiting regulatory approval. "There's certainly lots of potential there because it's a brand that's been neglected for a while," Prego said.

To capitalize on that increased awareness, retailers may do well to dress their family planning sets with synergistic shelf-talkers, directing potentially expectant mothers to the baby product aisle, or tying in offers, such as coupons to push sales of common pre-natal supplements like folic acid or iron.

Targeting women trying to get pregnant wouldn't be a bad move in the family planning section. Pregnancy test kit purchases are split evenly between women who want to be pregnant and women who don't--but women trying to get pregnant are the heavier purchasers of pregnancy test kits.

There are approximately 6 million pregnancies per year, according to American Pregnancy Association figures, resulting from a pool of some 18 million women who are either trying to get pregnant or who are not proactively preventing pregnancy. Indeed, there are as many as 6 million women who are challenged by infertility issues. Because these women are trying actively to get pregnant and tend to be quite, anxious to find out if they have been successful, "This is a group that purchases ovulation and pregnancy test kits a little more regularly," Brad Imler, president of the APA, told Drug Store News.