opinion | SExUAL DySFUNCTioN | d erectile
PETER CHARLISH Principal Analyst, Informa Business Information
email:
peter.charlish@informa. com
treatment for erectile dysfunction (ed) and one of the world’s most recognised pharmaceutical brands, was first launched by its originator pfizer in the uS in 1998 and subsequently, with great success, around the world. Global sales of the product last year were almost $2 billion. Although the basic US product patent
T 66 ❚ July 2011 |
prime-journal.com
for Viagra does not expire until 2012, the product began to face generic competition in other countries — notably Spain and Finland — as early as 2009. The latest country where this is happening is New Zealand, where patent protection for Viagra expired in June. But instead of sitting back and waiting for the generic companies to start eating into its revenues (Viagra is still the company’s sixth biggest product in revenue terms), Pfizer is seizing the initiative by launching a generic version of its own. Avigra, the new generic version of
Viagra, will reportedly sell for around NZ $8 per tablet, approximately half the price of the original product. And while it will still be a prescription-only product,
he producT ThaT kicked off the ‘lifestyle drug’ market over a decade ago is going generic. Viagra (sildenafil citrate), still the leading
ysfunction: treatment advances
The number of men reporting erectile difficulties has shown a steady increase in recent years.
Peter Charlish discusses the treatment options available
Pfizer says that, ‘launching a second brand in a generic market ... allows us to provide the same quality of medicine as Viagra at a more competitive price’. Whether the move is an honest attempt
by Pfizer to enable more men to access treatment for ED, or whether it is primarily designed to help the company protect its revenues, is of course a moot point. What it does highlight, however, is that a stake in the global market for ED treatments is worth fighting for. The top three products in this sector are Viagra, Cialis (tadalafil, developed by Lilly) and Levitra (vardenafil, developed by Bayer and marketed by Merck & Co and GlaxoSmithKline), and between them they registered worldwide sales of more than $3.6 billion last year. And this does not include sales of other drug treatments or medical devices used for the treatment of ED.
Incidence Although the phrase ‘erectile dysfunction’ is now preferred to ‘impotence’, it remains a somewhat imprecise term that covers a range of situations, from occasional difficulty in maintaining an erection sufficient
for satisfactory sexual
performance, to the prolonged and complete inability to develop an erection at all. As a result, estimates of the prevalence of ED vary, although most
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