Trying to respect copyright laws, I'm posting two excerpts from an article in the Street.com.
The summary is that Viagra is not such a huge blockbuster after all, and the other ED drugs probably won't be either.
thestreet.com
Viagra isn't disappearing, but the remedy's prescriptions are
steadily falling. New prescriptions have dropped for four
weeks straight and for seven of the last eight, according to
data from ING Baring Furman Selz. And the week in which
the scrips rose came after a week in which they posted their
largest drop in the period, 15%. Total prescriptions have
fallen in seven of the last nine weeks. Current sales
annualize at about $496 million a year, based on scrips for
the week ended Aug. 14, down from the annualized rate of
$900 million in its sixth week on the market, when scrips
peaked, according to pharmaceutical analyst Jim Flynn of
Furman Selz. A look at the new scrip growth of Vivus'
(VVUS:Nasdaq) disappointing Muse treatment for impotence
and Viagra track in an uncannily similar fashion.
...
In the report, Flynn says he downgraded the stock June 22
to hold from buy, when the shares traded at 111 1/2. Pfizer
traded at 107 9/16 Tuesday. The incredible shrinking
impotence market could mean more bad news for the
already wounded stocks of other impotence-drug companies,
such as Zonagen (ZONA:Nasdaq) and Macrochem
(MCHM:Nasdaq). These potential entrants into the
impotence-drug market gained on Viagra's hype, but as the
hype fizzles, so do their stocks. |
