While there have been a number of mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical industry, the top ten organisations (based on revenue) have not changed since the 2012 dotBrand application window. From that list, four own at least one dotBrand TLD today, with over two dozen organisations involved in the wider pharmaceutical and healthcare industry owning at least one dotBrand themselves.
As of 31st May 2024, approximately 1,200 dotBrand domain names have been registered within the pharma industry. Whilst the majority of these registrations are being actively used, or redirecting to a live website, there is still plenty of opportunity for round 1 applicants to create new and innovative uses for their dotBrand in this highly competitive and highly regulated market, where consumer trust and safety while engaging online is a primary goal.
To date, no major pharmaceutical company has migrated from their existing main domain (typically [brand].com) to their dotBrand TLD for their core websites. Unsurprisingly, the most common SLD registered by Pharmaceutical TLD holders is ‘NIC.’, which is the ICANN mandated domain all dotBrands owners have to publish. Following that, ‘careers’, ‘jobs’ and ‘company’ have been frequently registered and tend to be actively used. Around two thirds of all registered domain names resolve, either to active websites or redirect to one, whilst a third use SSL certificates, creating an additional layer of security for web users.
Notable active pharmaceutical industry users of their dotBrand include Abbott Labs, who have over 380 domain names registered, using their TLD for country specific websites (aus.abbott, cz.abbott and it.abbott) as well as specific websites for some of the conditions their drugs treat, such as diabetescare.abbott and cardiovascular.abbott, and a domain for their knowledge portal, globalpointofcare.abbott.
Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck has over 260 registered dotBrand names, a mix of corporate names such as careers.lundbeck and corporate.lundbeck. And yet there are innovative use cases reinforcing the value of a dotBrand, such as Johnson and Johnson’s Vaxcheck.jnj site that allows healthcare professionals to check in real-time the authenticity of COVID-19 vaccines, and Pfizer who are exploring uses of the metaverse and web 3.0 applications through metaverse.pfizer.
Other Pharmaceutical brands that currently use their dotBrand actively include Teva, Lilly and Fresenius. Abbott use their globalpointofcare.abbott website to offer specific technical support and service for users of their medical applications and equipment.
Whilst it may not appear that some dotBrand domains are not being actively used across the pharmaceutical companies, they may be being used for internal purposes, such as MX records for email servers, internal portals or addressing, which will not resolve to external users.
You can read more about dotBrand usage in the Pharmaceutical industry, and why a second round application could be beneficial, here.