A Baby Boomer Market for Viagra Wannabes: Drugs' New Era
Bloomberg News
July 24, 1998, 10:55 a.m. ET
A Baby Boomer Market for Viagra Wannabes: Drugs' New Era
(Last of a series on the rapid pace of drug development and
its ramifications. For previous stories, see EXTRA .)
Old Orchard Beach, Maine, July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Like other
American women her age, 53-year-old Paulette Silvester worries
about her health -- about extra pounds that seem harder to take
off, about developing Alzheimer's disease as her mother did,
about easing the pain of her golfer's elbow.
While there is little relief for her now, new therapies in
the offing promise to change everything.
''I would take anything if I knew it was safe -- for weight,
for arthritis, for Alzheimer's disease,'' said the 53-year-old
office worker. ''I'm ready to do anything to stop all this
aging.''
Silvester and seventy-six million other American baby
boomers are part of a worldwide demographic trend. People are
growing into middle age with the education, experience and self-
confidence to demand that medical science ameliorate the effects
of aging.
''You have a wealthy society with high living standards,''
said Jim Walline, who manages $1.1 billion in assets for the
Lutheran Brotherhood Fund in Minneapolis. ''People are willing
and able to spend some of their resources on health care.''
Drug manufacturers are only too willing to heed the call.
Investors and analysts expect that the market for osteoporosis
treatments alone could reach $4 billion a year -- with the
potential for billions more if the same drugs also prove
effective against cancer and Alzheimer's. Among the companies
developing osteoporosis drugs: Novo-Nordisk A/S, Pfizer Inc.,
SmithKline Beecham Plc and Eli Lilly & Co.
Obesity, Arthritis
Other treatments also promise handsome returns. Amgen Inc.,
Lilly and Roche Holding AG all are working on obesity drugs and
Merck & Co. and Monsanto Co. are developing drugs for arthritis,
which could be a $5 billion-a-year market.
The only obstacle to capitalizing on this potential may be
which drugs managed-care companies, which increasingly control
the nation's medical purse strings, will cover.
All manufacturers want to match Pfizer's success with its
Viagra impotence pill, expected to ring up $1 billion in sales in
its first 12 months on the market. But some insurance and managed-
care companies won't pay for the pills, which cost $10 each, and
in the future they may refuse to pay for drugs that enhance lives
but don't actually cure diseases.
Pfizer's little blue pill, Viagra, is still the product
competitors want to emulate, however.
Icos Corp., a biotechnology company with Microsoft Corp.
Chairman Bill Gates as its biggest shareholder, has an
experimental impotence treatment that targets muscles that
regulate blood flow to the penis. That may avoid some of the side
effects, such as the vision problems and potentially fatal drug
interactions, that shadow Viagra.
More for Impotence
Other drugs that may challenge Viagra for a share of a
market embracing an estimated 30 million American men affected by
impotence are Zonagen Inc.'s Vasomax, which Schering-Plough Corp.
will help market, and apomorphine from Abbott Laboratories and
Japan's Takeda Chemical Industries.
Viagra has been successful because it provides a significant
improvement in the lives of most men who take it and does treat a
legitimate medical condition. Not all baby boomer drugs may pass
that test.
''The pathway for success has to go through the Food and
Drug Administration, and they're not looking for lifestyle
modifiers,'' said Stephen Dalton, who manages $1 billion in
growth stocks for First Union Corp.'s First Capital Group. ''On
the other hand, if a particular condition is deemed a disease,
they're willing to move forward.''
Risks of Fat
It's a key point for companies developing obesity drugs.
Studies show patients who lose 5 percent to 10 percent of their
body weight also reduce their risk of several serious medical
conditions, including diabetes and high blood pressure.
And government numbers show more than half the nation is
overweight as most adults put on 10 unwanted pounds with each
decade of life.
''We have more and more evidence that the regulation of body
weight is a biological function and obesity is the result of that
system working improperly,'' said L. Arthur Campfield, an obesity
researcher in metabolic diseases at Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., a
Roche Holding unit.
The discovery four years ago of leptin, a hormone that
researchers' think may control appetite and metabolism, changed
the world of obesity research as nothing else has in the past 50
years, Campfield said.
Mice Tests
Researchers in 1995 showed mice with defective genes that
didn't produce the hormone lost 30 percent of their body weight
when injected with leptin. A limited study last month from Amgen,
which licensed exclusive rights to the protein, showed it can
work in people, too.
Other companies are taking a different tack. Instead of
adding more leptin to the system, they are working to make
existing levels more powerful and effective. Lilly is working on
a modified version that would keep it circulating in the blood
longer, while Roche, in partnership with Millennium
Pharmaceuticals Inc., is trying to develop a compound to make the
body more sensitive to it.
Most obesity drugs are still early in clinical testing and
it will be years before it's clear if they work.
American Home Product Corp.'s Redux, a potential $1 billion
obesity drug, did make it the U.S. market -- though indications
the drug damaged heart valves led the company to recall it.
Patent Fight
Revolutionary arthritis drugs from Monsanto's G.D. Searle
unit and Merck could be on the market by next year, though the
companies now are in a patent battle involving the two products.
Because they don't carry the dangerous and debilitating side
effects of most pain medications, the new drugs could make
products like Roche's Aleve and American Home's Advil, as well as
stronger prescription drugs, obsolete.
The most common type of arthritis, osteoarthritis, increases
with age and affects as many as 20 million Americans. Research
shows the two drugs, known as Celebra and MK-966, may also
relieve the more severe and less common rheumatoid arthritis, as
well as prevent colon cancer and Alzheimer's disease, thanks to
their potent ability to reduce inflammation.
''This is not your father's aspirin,'' says First Union's
Dalton.
Just as impotence is a critical issue for men as they age,
menopause, osteoporosis and breast cancer are specific worries
for women. A new category of drugs, known as ''super estrogens,''
attempts to address all these problems and then some.
Potential
Although the research remains in its infancy, the drugs
ideally would work like the hormone estrogen -- which decreases
in women as they age -- to protect against osteoporosis, heart
disease, and even Alzheimer's disease while reversing the
hormone's propensity to promote breast and uterine cancer.
''This is a phenomenal idea -- a compound seen by some
tissue as an estrogen and by others as an estrogen blocker,''
said Dr. Steven R. Goldstein, professor of obstetrics and
gynecology at New York University School of Medicine. ''Every
company and their grandmother is coming up with one. It's just
such a total package, it's mind-boggling.''
Zeneca Plc's Nolvadex is a first-generation example of the
category, while Lilly's Evista is an improved version. Neither is
perfect, however. Nolvadex can promote uterine cancer, while
Evista isn't as powerful as existing treatments for bone strength
and heart protection.
The potential for drug companies here is compelling. While
there were 35 million women aged 50 and older in 1995, that
number is expected to swell to more than 50 million by 2010.
These women want and will want what all aging folks do. Says
Freda Lewis-Hall, a psychiatrist and director of Eli Lilly &
Co.'s Center for Women's Health: ''They want to not just live
longer, they want to live better. And they expect the science to
be pushing on all fronts.''
--Michelle Fay Cortez in Ithaca, New York (607) 272-1174, through |
