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IT'S HERE AFTER SEVEN YEARS: Dr Peter Ellis, Executive Director, Pfizer UK, with Mr Kewal Handa, Managing Director, Pfizer India Ltd, at the launch of Viagra in Mumbai on Tuesday. - Paul Noronha

Mumbai , Dec. 20

IT was just an idea in 1989 when Pfizer's Dr Peter Ellis, joint patent holder on Viagra, thought that sildenafil citrate could be effective in treating erectile dysfunction (ED).

That the drug would go on to capture popular mind-space, with one tablet sold globally every six seconds, is something that the Pfizer team may not have then imagined.

Seven years after Viagra was launched globally, the male impotency drug Viagra has legally landed on Indian shores. At Rs 463 for 50 mg tablet and Rs 594 for a 100 mg tablet, Viagra in India is priced on par with its global counterpart, in what may be an in-built strategy to prevent the drug from being exported out of India.

In the US, for instance, Viagra is priced at $12 per tablet, Pfizer top-brass said.

Pfizer India's Managing Director, Mr Kewal Handa, told Business Line that the price was aligned to Viagra's global cost. The timing too, he said, had no more to it than the fact that there was a huge unmet need for the "original" brand. Viagra is a block-buster drug grossing sales of $1 billion.

In the last five years, about 15 copy-cat versions of Viagra have been launched in the local market, some of them priced as low as Rs 22. The estimated local ED market is Rs 100 crore and Pfizer expects to corner about 10 to 15 per cent of the market in two years.

Pfizer would import Viagra from France and the drug will be available on the market-shelves in 30 cities around the country from December 26, said Mr K.G. Ananthakrishnan, Senior Director with Pfizer Ltd. Manufacturing locally is something the company may look at later, company officials said.

Though alternative uses of Viagra are being explored in several quarters, Mr Handa said that the drug would be targeted for ED and promoted through specialist doctors such as endocrinologists, urologists etc. Pfizer was not approaching regulatory authorities for other indications, he said. About 90 million people are estimated to suffer from ED in India.

Pfizer has about 34 ongoing clinical studies in India, he said, of which about 24 were on a global scale. With the restructuring of the local field-force being completed, he said that Pfizer in India would look to launch global products "as close to the international launches."

This is the second major launch from the Pfizer stable this year, after anti-fungal product Vfend earlier this year.

Pfizer shares closed at Rs 954.10 on the BSE, up from Monday's close of Rs 919.90.

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