Eli Lilly raises stakes for Viagra
Le Weekender, Levitra challenge original remedy for erectile dysfunction
Wojtek Dabrowski
Financial Post
January 13, 2004
Until a month ago, Dr. Martin Buckspan had only one effective oral treatment he could prescribe to the hundreds of erectile dysfunction patients at his urology practice at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto: Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra.
That was until Eli Lilly & Co. and Icos Corp. launched their Cialis in Canada in early December. Drawn by its promise of up to 36 hours of duration, as compared with the four- to six-hour window for Viagra, the majority of Dr. Buckspan's new patients are choosing to try the Lilly-Icos product.
"I think that Cialis has certainly bitten significantly, in the short-term at least, into the Viagra market and may continue to do so," Dr. Buckspan said.
Cialis, dubbed Le Weekender by the French, was made available for purchase in Canada in early December, and in the first 24 hours of sale its makers received orders for more than $1.5-million of the drug.
With 2002 global sales of about US$1.7-billion, Viagra is still the market benchmark for oral ED treatments. However, Sena P. Lund, a pharmaceuticals analyst with Cathay Financial LLC, predicts it's only a matter of time before Cialis ultimately unseats Viagra from the top spot.
"Eventually, if you look three years down the road or so, I think Cialis is going to lead, with Viagra and Levitra [in] near second," he said.
Levitra, the ED offering from GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Bayer AG with a duration similar to Viagra's, is still pending approval for sale in Canada.
Erectile dysfunction affects about 33 million men in Canada and the United States alone. The global market for ED drugs is expected to grow to US$3-billion to US$5-billion over the next five years, making the race to reach men affected by the condition an important one for the drug giants.
However, the ailment carries a social stigma, forcing the companies to become quite innovative in their marketing efforts. The goal is not to overtly promote a drug, they say. It is to convince men to seek treatment for ED.
For instance, the makers of Levitra have partnered with the National Football League in the United States for play-of-the-week segments and launched a men's health show with former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka.
"We feel like that has really been a huge asset to our success," said Michael Fleming, a spokesman for GSK in the United States, adding that about 100 million American men watch football games every week.
The Lilly-Icos partnership is staying away from sports in its attempts to contact men with ED and has turned to music, instead.
It has launched a music Web site aimed at couples, in addition to a radio sweepstakes contest in major Canadian markets where 36 couples can win an overseas concert getaway.
However, GSK-Bayer and Lilly-Icos say they are not directly promoting their drugs through these efforts -- they have classic advertising and salesmen for that.
Instead, the companies say they'd be elated if more men simply went to see their doctors about the condition as a result of their ED campaigns.
"Over three million men in Canada have erectile dysfunction, yet somewhere between 10% and 20% actually seek treatment -- so 80% [of the market] is untapped," said David Ricks, vice-president of marketing at Eli Lilly Canada Inc.
Mr. Fleming also says that growing the market for ED has been "a major challenge" because of men's reluctance to see their doctors about their condition.
Pfizer, however, isn't worried about Levitra and Cialis stealing its customers.
"For us, we see the advent of competition as growing the market," Pfizer Canada Inc. spokeswoman Sophie McCann said, adding that while sales have grown since Viagra's launch in Canada in 1999, "there's still a lot of work to be done."
Viagra, which hit the U.S. market in early 1998 to great acclaim, books an average of a million prescriptions in Canada a year. It also has patent protection until 2011, so Pfizer isn't particularly concerned about generic threats to Viagra, either.
Pfizer did, however, file a suit in the United States that alleged one of its patents would be infringed if Levitra was to be sold.
In Europe, Cialis was launched in early 2003 and again snapped up market share rapidly in its first six months.
As of September, Cialis had a 29% share of total unit volume for the so-called PDE-5 treatments (like Viagra, Levitra and Cialis) available on the market in Germany, Mr. Ricks said. In France and Italy, that share was 28%.
And Levitra, which launched in the United States in the fall of 2003, had captured "high teens" of new prescriptions by the end of the year, said Mr. Fleming.
Pfizer is no doubt keeping a close eye on its competitors. However, Ms. McCann said there will be no push to rejig Viagra to match Cialis' 36-hour effect.
"I don't think there's a push to reformulate Viagra," she said. "The more treatment options are out there, then the better it is for the men."
She also said the Little Blue Pill was the first to establish itself as safe and effective in helping men cope with ED, "and for a lot of doctors there's a comfort zone with Viagra."
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