Viagra excites foreign doctors at U.S. convention
Reuters Story - June 03, 1998 21:04
By Mark Egan
LOS ANGELES, June 3 (Reuters) - Doctors from all over the
world descended on San Diego this week with just one world on
their lips -- Viagra.
The American Urological Association's annual meeting is
normally a run-of-the-mill sleepy doctors' convention, but with
Pfizer Inc's breakthrough impotence pill on display the meeting
piqued a lot more excitement than usual.
The little blue pill has become one of the fastest selling
drugs in U.S. history with over 1.5 million prescriptions
written since it was introduced as the world's first oral
medication for impotence in April.
But while U.S. doctors can prescribe the pill, Viagra is
not yet available elsewhere. Not to be deterred foreign doctors
flocked here hoping to get a piece of the action.
One drug manufacturing company was banished from the
conference in San Diego after selling Viagra to foreign doctors
desperate to bring it back home to their patients.
University Compounding Pharmacy, a San Diego-based company
that manufactures drugs, was ejected from the conference on
Tuesday and banned from future meetings after selling the
popular new drug from its booth a the meeting.
"They were selling Viagra on the convention floor which is
against our regulations and U.S. Food and Drug Administration
regulations," said meeting Secretary Dr. Martin Resnick. "We
closed them down and told them we never want to see them at
another of our functions."
"It was foreign physicians who cannot get Viagra in their
own country," Resnick said. "I was told there was an Egyptian
physician that wanted to purchase $10,000 worth."
The meeting which deals with such issues as prostate
problems and impotence has been more popular this year than in
previous years. About 17,500 doctors attended the meeting, up
from 13,000 last year. Organizers said Viagra played a big part
in that surge.
"In France, we don't yet have this drug, because it is not
yet authorized by the minister of health," Dr. Franck Salome
told the San Diego Union Tribune. "But, oh, do the patients
want it. And it is sold, because there is a large black market.
For $500 you can buy 13 pills."
The pill has sprouted a black market in a slew of foreign
countries including Egypt where it reportedly fetches about $60
a pill.
The pill is sold in the United States for $10 each and has
sparked a price war between retailers Kmart Corp and Wal-Mart
Stores Inc which have both offered five pills for less than
$40.
Foreign doctors should not have to wait for long.
Outside the United States the drug is only available in
Brazil and the tiny European countries of San Marino and
Andorra but should be available in a few other countries and
throughout Europe by September.
Some pharmacies have been offering the drug on the Internet
offering a consultation by a "cyber-doctor" in place of the
traditional doctor's examination.
Many doctors are worried about the unbridled enthusiasm by
patients who are viewing Viagra as a fun drug rather than a
medication that deserves the same respect as any other.
"There has been irresponsible physicians doing things that
are not approved and irresponsible patients and people have to
be very reasonable," said Dr. William Steers who published a
report on Viagra at the meeting.
"This is a controlled prescription drug, it is not a party
drug."
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