A male impotence drug which is manufactured at a Cork pharmaceutical plant has broken records in the first week of its introduction to the US market.
Viagra, produced by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, has become the fastest-selling new drug in the US, with prescriptions running at an estimated 10,000 a day. Market analysts said it was the most successful drug launch in history, outstripping Prozac and the baldness drug Rogaine, and sales had pushed the company's share price to a record high.
With an estimated 30 million men in the US suffering from impotence, it is projected that the product could earn Pfizer $1 billion by the year 2000.
The company's plant at Ringaskiddy is one of the main production centres for the drug's active ingredient, Sildenafil. However, it is understood there are no implications for employment at the facility, which is currently around 300.
The drug is still awaiting the go-ahead for sale in Europe, although following its approval by the US Food and Drug Administration it is thought the EU authorities will approve it later this year.
In the meantime, the doctor who has supervised the only trials of the drug in the Republic has predicted it will be a "huge success" here.
"It's a massive breakthrough in the treatment of the problem, and the success in the US doesn't surprise me," said Dr T.E.D. McDermott, who told the Irish Medical Organisation's annual conference recently that impotence affects half of all men over the age of 40.
As part of the worldwide tests on the drug, Dr McDermott has been using it for the past three years on 18 Irish volunteers. "We had two months to fill our quota, but such was the demand we filled it in seven days. We could probably have had over 1,000 people if we wanted.".
Dr McDermott said the drug had first been used for improving blood supply to the heart. "But they found the fellows taking it were all getting erections, so then they started looking at alternative uses".
The variable-dosage pill costs an average $9 in the US, but unlike other drugs it does not have to be taken routinely. "The whole idea is you use it when you need it. It works after about an hour, on an empty stomach. So if you were hoping to function successfully this evening, for instance, you would judge for yourself the right time to have it.".
Possible side-effects include headaches, skin flushing and a "blueing" of vision, in which everything appears with a slightly blue tint. But one of the expected problems, a difficulty in getting rid of an erection once it is achieved, has not transpired, according Dr McDermott. "That has been one of the problems with the present group of drugs," he said.
However, with reports of at least black-market versions of Viagra already on sale in the US, doctors there have warned about the dangers of men misusing the product.
"These men may end up injuring themselves and becoming permanently impotent," said Dr Milhall, a urologist at Chicago's Loyola University.
Additional reporting by the Guardian
