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Biotech / Medical : PFE (Pfizer) How high will it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D.J.Smyth who wrote (1585)	4/25/1998 12:40:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 9523

Here's anothr tale: TIME Daily April 22, 1998 Viagra Nation Suddenly everyone wants the little pill that cures impotence We should have seen this coming from a mile away. Any country that found in Prozac an excuse to dope itself to the gills over the occasional bad hair day was bound to go nuts over a drug that promised -- and delivered! -- the sexual Holy Grail: Dependable erections. Any-time, no-questions-asked hard-ons courtesy of a little diamond-shaped pill retailing for $7-10 each. Two weeks into the release of Pfizer's new impotence drug Viagra, the numbers are impressive to say the least. An estimated 40,000 impotence prescriptions are filled each day. Viagra suddenly controls 79 percent of the impotence drug market, according to drug research firm IMS America. And then there's the anecdotal evidence: One doctor has stopped taking calls. Another now uses a rubber stamp to fill prescriptions because he says his hand's getting cramped. Newspapers were giddy: "Doctors Can Barely Keep Up As Men Flock For Love Drug," gushed the New York Post, while Reuters shamelessly added that "Drug Analyst Says Viagra Sales Appear Enormous." All this before Pfizer has even had a chance to unleash an advertising campaign. Comparisons were immediately made to Prozac, Eli Lilly's flagship drug that captured the national imagination when introduced in 1994 and currently sells around 70,000 prescriptions a day. But Viagra has the potential to be like Prozac in another way: Millions who don't really need it may use it anyway. And while Pfizer takes the high road, other have begun the hard sell. Take 'Penispill.com', the Web presence of Milwaukee's Vascular Center For Men whose chief graphic element is a closeup picture of what is sure to become the impotence drug industry's money shot, a proudly erect penis. (Their helpful advice: "To use Viagra you must be male, you must be at least 18 years old, and you must not be taking any heart medication which contains nitroglycerine-like compounds. Ask us if you are not sure.") And while the Viagra craze has yet to produce its Elizabeth Wurtzel, there's one thing we're absolutely sure of: The Union is not strong enough to withstand the publication of 'Viagra Nation.' Viagra turns out to be a cure-all for flagging stock prices as well. Pfizer stock has nearly tripled in the past year, largely on the strength of good feelings about the pill. Pfizer shares rose 2 13/16 to 116 3/16 on Tuesday after soaring eight percent, or 8.18 3/4 the day before. After a week of frenzied bidding that saw Pfizer increase in value more than 20 percent, the company was sitting in tall cotton and smiling down at Merck, suddenly the nation's no. 2 pharmaceutical firm. And other companies are basking in the same heat: Zonagen, a small firm testing a pill called Vasomax, has seen its market valuation climb past $500 million, while MacroChem, a Massachusetts company that's working on delivering a happier sex life via a gel you rub on your penis, has seen its stock more than triple over the past few months. The beauty of Viagra is that it's pretty much a straightforward matter of hydraulics. The drug was originally developed as a heart medication, but when researchers found that by blocking the enzyme that caused the muscles around around the penile arteries to contract, the muscles relaxed and blood flowed through, leading to engorgement. Voila! A roomful of British test subjects smiled sheepishly at their great good fortunes, and the state of their hearts had nothing to do with it. Of course there's a downside. Gifts from the sexual gods do not come without strings attached, even if the gods in question are wearing lab coats. In this case the problem is that other important organ, the heart. It's possible your ticker might not withstand the stress of suddenly resuming sexual activity, if you've been impotent for some time. Another potential problem, doctors say, is that the drugs may mask early warning signs of heart disease. Still, in the grand scheme of things, the risk-reward calculation rarely skews so high on the "reward" side. Which means good news for Pfizer -- and millions of men and women worldwide. --Mark Coatney And Now for the Women More and more scientists have come to believe that the underlying mechanisms of male and female impotence are not so far apart. The new generation of drugs that will be tested on both men and women: Viagra (chemical name: sildenafil): Relaxes muscle cells to enhance blood flow. Early female trials under way in Europe; U.S. female trials will be discussed at an FDA meeting later this month Vasomax (phentolamine): Oral version of an approved injectable drug. Dilates blood vessels to increase flow. Male trials are near completion in the U.S.; female trials are planned Spontane (apomorphine): Works through the central nervous system. Male trials are nearing completion; female trials are planned Prostaglandin creams: Applied to surface of the genitals to stimulate blood flow. Male trials under way; female trials planned