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Biotech / Medical : VVUS: VIVUS INC. (NASDAQ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: VLAD who wrote (9710)	6/16/1998 11:07:00 AM
From: OmertaSoldier	Respond to of 23519

VLAD, this would be a great story for CNBC but you know they would never mention this story. EXPENSE, EMBARRASSMENT KEEP VIAGRA ON THE SHELVES IN STEAMY BRAZIL By Laurie Goering Tribune Foreign Correspondent June 16, 1998 RIO DE JANEIRO -- At Drogaria Max, a popular pharmacy in Rio's wealthy bayside neighborhood of Urca, boxes of little blue pills are getting dusty on the shelves. "A lot of people have come in asking about it, but we've only sold one box," said Carlos dos Santos, who works behind the counter. "The prediction was it would go like crazy. But it hasn't happened." Two weeks after Viagra was launched with much hype in this steamy nation with a sexual reputation to uphold, sales have been, well, a lot less potent than U.S.-based Pfizer Inc. had hoped. Brazil was Pfizer's second launch site for its wonder drug after the U.S., and the nation was thought to have as many as 10 million uncomfortably impotent men. Worries about a rash of untimely deaths, including that of a 66-year-old Brazilian man, have contributed to Viagra's lackluster performance here, as has a regulatory crackdown that has kept the drug out of the hands of the nation's sexual experimenters. What seems to have sealed the drug's mediocre fate in Brazil, however, is its cost. In an unusual move for a nation not known for strict regulation, Viagra can be sold only with a prescription, after a visit to a doctor. In a country where health insurance remains rare and costly, doctor visits cost $40 or more, too much for many people to pay. The drug itself costs around $12 a pill--it's $10 in the United States--and is sold in packages of just four. After taking four pills, an impotent man must return to his doctor for a new prescription. In Brazil, where the minimum wage amounts to $113 a month, $88 for a Viagra fix is a lot of money. "The treatment ends up being too expensive for many people," complained a pharmacist in the state Matto Grosso do Sul, who told Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that his pharmacy chain had sold just 10 percent of its Viagra stock. Brazilians are unaccustomed to needing prescriptions for anything. Such formality is largely overlooked, and a chat with the pharmacist usually will get you what you need. But there are stricter rules for Viagra than for high-powered antibiotics or cancer-treatment drugs. "People ask, 'Can't you give me a jeitinho?' " said dos Santos, the pharmacy worker, referring to the common Brazilian slang for finding a way to circumvent regulation. "They say, 'Isn't there some way we can get around it?' " This time there isn't. Brazil's Health Ministry, nervous after 16 deaths of Viagra users since the drug was released in the U.S. in March, has threatened to fine any pharmacy whose stocks of Viagra don't reconcile with their prescriptions. Prescriptions and cost, however, are just the start of Viagra's problems. Pharmacists report that an unexpectedly large number of men are whispering when they show up at the pharmacy. Most say they're buying it for someone else. "Asking for a drug when everybody knows what it's used for is still very embarrassing for men," said Marcio Sister, a Brazilian urologist and author of "Say No to Impotence." "Pfizer didn't expect that. They didn't think men would be ashamed." Brazilians who had hoped to experiment with the drug as an aphrodisiac also have been discouraged, both by their inability to get a prescription and by a blitz of news reports talking about the drug's limitations and risks as well as its potential. Valdair Pinto, the medical director for Pfizer in Brazil, emphasizes that none of the deaths of Viagra users in recent months has been definitely linked to the drug itself. Nervous Brazilians aren't so convinced, though some are taking the risks in stride, given the drug's obvious benefits. "At least it would be a happy death," one 68-year-old user told Rio's O Globo newspaper.