Just for the sake of comparison:
Last year New Years Day fell on a Thursday and Christmas Day was on a Thursday.
Now look at the script numbers and relative changes looking at the week before Christmas and the following 2 weeks:
Week ending 12/19/97
New 10,742
Refill 5,226
Total 15,968
Week ending 12/26/97
New 6,961 (down 54.3%)
Refill 4,701 (down 10.0%)
Total 11,662 (down 27.0%)
Week ending 1/2/98
New 7,361 (up 5.75%)
Refill 5,639 (up 20.0%)
Total 13,000 (up 11.5%)
Now compare the changes this year:
Week ending 12/18/98
New 2,114
Refill 2,121
Total 4,235
Week ending 12/25/98
New 1,551 (down 26.6% compared to 54.3% in 1997)
Refill 1,904 (down 10.2% compared to 10.0 in 1997)
Total 3,445 (down 18.4% compared to 27.0% in 1997)
Week ending 1/1/98
I don't have the breakdown of new/refill but
Total 3,956 (up 14.8% compared to last years 11.5%)
Looking at these numbers we can say that the decrease from the week before Christmas to Christmas was significantly lower this year compared to last and the increase from Christmas week to New Years week was significantly greater in 1999 than in 1998--especially considering that the drop the prior week was less this time around.
A definite uptrend is now noted in the prescription data.
I can only attribute this to the Viagra safety issues. Some are trickling back to MUSE and some are first time users who don't want to risk taking Viagra. |
