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Pfizer's patent pain over Viagra

Friday, June 28, 2013 - 02:19

June 28 - Goodbye Viagra, hello competition! Angeline Ong takes a look at Pfizer's fortunes as Viagra's UK patent expires.

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EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: RESENDING VIDEO WITH MISSING GRAPHIC Michael Douglas, Kim Catrall, Bob Dole and Pele. What links these four people together? Viagra! Whether they've used it or promoted it.. This little blue pill has invigorated their lives along with millions of couples. Now, Viagra may be about to become much cheaper - it loses patent protection in the UK in June, meaning rival manufacturers can get in on the action. (SOUNDBITE) (English) PAUL FLEMING, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR OF THE BRITISH GENERIC MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION, SAYING: 'Certainly we're aware that there's alot of companies with regulatory approval already in place… and there's about 20 of those and from that at least a dozen or so will actually launch a product later this month. So we do expect the price decline to be very rapid and very steep. So in fact we'd expect the price to go down by 90% very quickly.' That would slash the price of a pill from around 10-pounds down to as little as 1-quid - the price of a pack of gum. This would torpedo the online Viagra black market. And lead to big savings for the UK's national health service, which spent around 40-million-pounds on the drug last year. So, how much is this gonna hurt the maker of Viagra? Put it this way, Pfizer got slammed after its 10-billion-dollar-a-year cholesterol fighting drug - Lipitor - lost its patent protection in the fall of 2011. Global sales plunged 71% in Q-4 2012 to 584-million. Viagra alone brought in almost 2 billion in sales in 2010 worldwide. Pfizer is HITTING back. It's launching its own cut price version of the drug - called Sildenafil Pfizer - to hang on to market share. But this may not be enough to stay on top of its game. (SOUNDBITE) (English) - PAUL FLEMING, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR OF THE BRITISH GENERIC MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION, SAYING: 'The great majority of prescriptions are already written with the generic name, so they're not written with the name Viagra, and because of that, once the patent expires, the great majority of patients will immediately be switched to one of these many generic formulations that will be available so Pfizer will be competing amongst that field of double digit competitors' The fight for domination will be fierce given the use of Viagra is rising in the UK and around the world. The question is - does Pfizer have 'staying power,' as one of the world's most potent brands all but disappears.