Viagra: 20 years raising expectations

Its generic name is sildenafil (compound UK-92,480), but it is its commercial name, 비아그라 판매 , which for 20 years has been associated throughout the world with one of the most revolutionary medical advances in the field of sexual relations: the remedy to erectile dysfunction.

The famous blue pill that has made it possible for millions of impotent men (or with other erection problems due, for example, to age) to have sexual relations, and that introduced a hitherto taboo subject into conversations, was authorized in the US market on March 27, 1998, now two decades ago, and began selling in that country just a few weeks later. The European Union authorized its marketing in September of the same year and at the beginning of November, it reached Spanish pharmacies.

The release of 비아그라 판매 ,  the first oral drug against impotence, gave rise to a social phenomenon that filled the consultations of urologists, caused queues in pharmacies, and made the actions of Pfizer laboratories, the pharmaceutical company that developed rose-like foam. In the first fifteen days alone, some 150,000 prescriptions were issued in the US and the pharmaceutical company already had 79% of the market for medicines to combat impotence. Four years later, some 20 million men had taken Viagra. Today, the number of medical prescriptions dispensed for legal consumption exceeds 65 million.

In November last year, the UK announced that from this spring its pharmacies will be the first in the world where Viagra can be purchased without a prescription (it will be marketed under the name Viagra Connect and can be dispensed by a pharmacist for use ). in men older than 18 years). Before, in October 2015, Addyi, the trade name of flibanserin, was released in the United States, a controversial drug to increase libido in women and their sexual desire, which was soon baptized as the "female viagra". Despite its nickname, neither its performance nor its effects are comparable to those of the drug for men, and doctors warned of side effects such as fainting or low blood pressure.

The boom'

비아그라 판매  is not an aphrodisiac, but its effects, evident half an hour to an hour after taking it, were often described in the media as "miraculous." In Europe, during the months in which it was not yet authorized, the pharmacies of Andorra, Gibraltar, and San Marino, the only ones that could sell it, were overwhelmed. Not even the high price of the product (around 70,000 pesetas at the time for a container of 30 tablets) dissuaded the numerous buyers eager to try it.

The Internet soon became the main way to obtain information about Viagra or buy it, and various companies launched the sale of the drug through the network. Under cover of the boom, a flourishing black market also arose with numerous "points of sale" in countries where the pill was not yet authorized, and which included "consultations" in which doctors or pseudo-doctors supplied it to their patients, even hostesses. There were also cases of fakes of the popular blue pill, theft of drug boxes, or scams related to it.

At the beginning of the 2000s, Pfizer had established itself as the absolute leader in the erectile dysfunction treatment market, with worldwide sales of more than 1,600 million dollars a year, a situation of dominance that would begin to change with the release of two competing pills: Levitra, from Bayer, in August 2003, and Cialis, from Lilly and Icos laboratories, in November of the same year. In 2003, Pfizer's Viagra revenues worldwide amounted to $1,879 million. A year later they had fallen to 1,678 million .

Finally, in June 2013, Pfizer saw its goose that lays the golden eggs seriously decimated, when the patent it had on the drug expired. Since then, the drug can be created by other pharmaceutical companies and marketed under the generic name of "viagra" and with the same active composition (sildenafil). Currently, therefore, any generic drug based on sildenafil citrate can be called "viagra" without having to answer to the authorities.

In 2012, before losing the patent, Pfizer, which had been recovering little by little since the launch of competing drugs, received a total of 2,051 million dollars from Viagra sales. In 2017 the figure had fallen to around 800 million .