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

To: Solid who wrote (4718)	8/3/1998 11:36:00 PM
From: BigKNY3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9523

The media just loves the Viagra story. Here is an editorial written by an "expert" that was published on July 30, 1998 in the Arizona Republic. Can you spot the tiny error? Have PFun! BigKNY3 __________________________________ Pricing of Viagra, quality-of-life drugs deserves criticism. Author: Carl A. Schnaitman, a molecular biologist in Phoenix. He does Science writing and consulting. He is a retired professor and chairman of the microbiology department at ASU. There has been an epidemic of bashing of the anti-impotence drug Viagra, with everyone from Jay Leno to local newscasters jumping on the bandwagon. I must object, both as a man who is well over 50 and as a scientist who has been a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry. Some of the misplaced bashing has been over the safety issue. If you are an older man with a heart condition, Viagra-assisted sex can be a hazard. So can watching a cliffhanger Suns game, shoveling snow in Minnesota or climbing Squaw Peak on a warm day in Phoenix. But none of these latter activities are given the same scrutiny as Viagra, despite the fact there are men who would argue that, if you must go, dying during sex is preferable to dying watching a Suns game, especially because the Suns didn't go far in the playoffs. There is something that badly needs bashing. It is the predatory pricing of Viagra by Merck, its manufacturer and equally predatory behavior of managed health care organizations that refuse to cover the cost of Viagra on the questionable premise that drugs that only improve the quality of life should not be considered part of health care. There is no question that Merck should recover its development costs for Viagra or that is should be allowed to make a profit. But in addition to reasonable development costs and profits, Merck will receive a giant windfall. Part of the reason for this windfall is that Merck greatly under estimated its potential market. Impotence is not an all or nothing disorder that develops suddenly in older men, like a door being slammed shut. Instead, it is a door that closes very slowly, over years of decades. It would be one thing if Merck were to use its success to drop the price of Viagra. Or if it were to use its windfall profits to develop new antibiotics to meet the growing threat of multiple drug resistant bacteria or to follow up on its spectacular success in developing the first anti-AIDS protease inhibitor. But antibiotics and anti-AIDS drugs are high-cost, low profit items, and the greedy winds of Wall Street have blown change into drug company boardrooms. ............................ The predatory pricing today by companies that enjoy legal monopolies is as offensive as John D. Rockefeller attempting to corner the market for kerosene a century ago. At least, it is deserving of our bashing.