A few weeks ago "pink Viagra", more properly known as Addyi, got a green light from the FDA. The drug purports to treat “hypoactive sexual desire disorder” in women. The day after the approval, Sprout Pharmaceuticals, a small company with the patent, was sold for US$1 billion in cash to Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. Valeant obviously thought it had a winner.
It turns out that it has backed the wrong horse. In the first few weeks, only 227 prescriptions have been filled. “I thought there was going to be this huge onslaught,” the director of the Women’s Health Clinic at the Mayo Clinic told Bloomberg Business.
Addyi has a lot of drawbacks; it has potentially deadly side effects, women can't drink alcohol while using it; it costs US$780 a month; and it must be taken daily. But the biggest problem might be that Valeant believed Sprout's canny public relations campaign which promoted sex as "a basic human right" and one of the FDA's "priority areas of unmet medical need". Perhaps women are more interested in commitment than a Viagra they can call their own.
Michael Cook
Editor
BioEdge
| This week in BioEdge | |
by Xavier Symons | Nov 21, 2015
Dozens, if not hundreds, of Chinese research hubs are using the CRISPR technique on a range of animals.by Xavier Symons | Nov 21, 2015
95% of doctors have fled, been detained or killed in the besieged eastern city of Aleppo.by Xavier Symons | Nov 21, 2015
In an article published this week in the Journal of Medical Ethics, two ethicists make the liberal case for banning smoking.by Xavier Symons | Nov 21, 2015
In spite of promises for reform, the Chinese government is still using the organs of harvested prisoners.by Michael Cook | Nov 21, 2015
They fail to meet minimum requirementsby Michael Cook | Nov 21, 2015
Only two-thirds of clinical trials for new drugs were disclosed in 2012, according to a new study in BMJ Openby Michael Cook | Nov 21, 2015
What will happen when transplants merely improve lives, not save them?by Michael Cook | Nov 21, 2015
Doctors are being told to lie about the cause of deathby Michael Cook | Nov 21, 2015
It's too late to change the system.by Michael Cook | Nov 21, 2015
Hollywood star blackmailed over HIV statusBioEdge
Suite 12A, Level 2 | 5 George St | North Strathfield NSW 2137 | Australia
Phone: +61 2 8005 8605
Mobile: 0422-691-615
Email: michael@bioedge.org
New Media Foundation | Level 2, 5 George St | North Strathfield NSW 2137 | AUSTRALIA | +61 2 8005 8605 BioEdge: the latest news and articles about bioethics
.png)
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario