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

To: Ibexx who wrote (1944)	5/1/1998 9:22:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 9523

An article on Viagra and the black market (copied this from the impotence support NG): LOVE DRUG MAY GIVE RISE TO ILLEGAL MARKET By CATHY BURKE Viagra has become such a coveted love drug it could soon pop up on the black market, experts said yesterday. All the conditions are in place for just such a national - and even international - underground trade, they said. These include intense interest in the drug, uncertainty about whether insurers will pay - and the sheer numbers of potential users without coverage at all. "With some insurance companies not covering the drug, a black market may develop," said Dr. John Mulhall, director of the Center for Male Sexual Health at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago. 0"It's a possibility, but with the drug just out for three weeks now, nobody really knows what's going on out there. The response has been so tumultuous." The black market could extend overseas, as well. The United States gave approval for the drug ahead of other countries, giving smugglers an incentive to take Viagra abroad. "There is a potential ripoff problem in countries where it's not yet available, like Italy where there is no patent law, or in Mexico," Mulhall said. "Pfizer ^the manufacturer of the drug_ is probably keeping a very close watch on that." Mulhall, a Pfizer Inc. investigator involved in ongoing research on the drug, said the tremendous response to Viagra just underscores a problem that "people totally underestimate." It is believed that between 20 and 30 million men suffer from erectile dysfunction, "and we've only been seeing 5 percent of them, either because they don't like the therapy that has been available or they are embarrassed," he said. With the interest in the drug reflected in the media, "maybe there is now less of a stigma in talking about it." Mulhall said the media coverage is also getting the attention of black marketeers. "People are going to try to make a buck," he said. "We've already seen some of that on the Internet and with sound-alike ripoffs." One web site sponsored by a Milwaukee osteopath offered prescriptions to anyone who would pay $50 and complete a three-question phone interview with a nurse. Wisconsin authorities made him stop. "Whether it's heroin or nitrous oxide, the black-market structure ends up being the same," Arthur Thexton, a prosecuting attorney for the Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing, told the Chicago Tribune. One Arizona newspaper reported Viagra, which sells for approximately $10 a pill at the pharmacy, costs as much as $50 a pop on the black market. City and state authorities in New York said yesterday they've yet to hear of any underground economy growing out of Viagra's popularity, and that there hasn't yet been a need to put protections in place. But the insurance squeeze may force the issue. Health insurers are demanding proof from doctors that their patients really do need the impotence pill, and aren't just looking to spice up their sex lives. And because Viagra is a use-it-as-you-need-it drug and not a daily pill, insurers are trying to determine what constitutes a monthly supply. Not all insurance companies cover the $10-a-pill drug. Many of them, like Aetna U.S. Healthcare, haven't decided what to do.