Viagra is set to get cheaper, thanks to Indian pharma companies
Pfizer’s Viagra patent is up for grabs and Indian pharmaceutical companies are on the prowl.
Viagra — equal parts erectile dysfunction treatment and dubious subject line starter in your spam folder — is set to get a lot less expensive. That is if Indian pharmaceutical corporations have their way. Pfizer, the American Pharma giant that manufactures the drug, is set to lose its patent. Although sildenafil, the drug sold under the Viagra brand name, was originally intended to help people with hypertension and cardiovascular disease, it was discovered that the drug could induce strong penile erections. To treat erectile dysfunction, Pfizer filed a patent for the drug that was later marketed as Viagra in 1994.
The Pfizer patent which allows the formulation of Viagra, a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction (ED) among men, ends by 2020. Since America is India’s largest market for medicines, this move will open new avenues for Indian pharma companies. They will look to target the almost five crore American men who suffer from ED. Seven Indian companies have already secured permission and are a part of the 15 company group that has been granted approval by US health authority, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to produce sildenafil citrate — the primary drug of Viagra.
The Indian companies currently in the fray to sell the Blue Pill are Rubicon Research, Hetero Drugs, Macleods Pharma, Dr Reddy’s, Aurobindo Pharma, Torrent Pharmaceuticals and Ajanta Pharma. The Indian companies are also working on plans to lower the price of Viagra by almost 99 per cent. According to a report in The Hindustan Times, The pill that cost around $65 (a little over 4,400 ruppes) currently in the US will see a huge drop in the prices once the Indian companies are allowed. The Mumbai-based Macleods Pharmaceuticals, which started exporting its products to the US in 2012, sells their version of Viagra in India called the Macsutra for just ruppes 58 per tablet. Even Ajanta Pharma, a publicly-listed form sells its version in India for just ruppes 32 per tablet.
The Indian company’s entry to the American markets will definitely leave a dent on Pfizer’s profits. The company earned over $1.68 billion (ruppes 11,535 crore) thanks to Viagra sales in 2014. In a research conducted by Transparency Market Research, the global erectile dysfunction drug market itself was valued at $4.35 billion (ruppes 29,876 crore) in 2016. But the Indian firms entering the US markets will have to contend with the rising FDA license fees. The FDA had earlier increased the fee by over 65 ruppes lakh from ruppes 45 lakh to 1.1 ruppes crore for the 2018 fiscal year.