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| Viagra single-dose packet--Courtesy Pfizer |
After 20 years, Viagra is getting a new look. In packaging, that is. Pfizer will now offer Viagra in single-dose packets that are about the size of a sugar packet. A size easy to slip into a shirt pocket, an image shown on the brand's website.
Pfizer ($PFE) spokesman Steve Danehy said the single packs are a first for ED drugs and offer "a new option for men to take Viagra with them when they need it."
They've attracted interest already. In a Pfizer online survey of 503 men with ED, about 50% expressed interest in trying the single packs, Danehy told FiercePharmaMarketing in an email interview.
Patients will still get the same Viagra scripts from their doctors, but will have to ask for the new single packs at their local pharmacy. Availability will depend on whether a particular pharmacy decides to stock it. When asked how many pharmacies will carry the single packs, Danehy said Pfizer doesn't have that information.
Viagra may be looking to gain a competitive edge, not only against competitors such as Eli Lilly's ($LLY) Cialis and Bayer's Levitra, but also as Viagra prepares for generic competition likely to hit in 2017. Other recent Viagra marketing tactics? New-style advertising featuring women talking frankly to men about ED, for one. Then there's the launch of home-delivery service through CVS, for men who'd rather not wait at the pharmacy counter, noted an article in the International Business Times.
Viagra was the fourth-largest prescription drug advertised last year, according to Nielsen, with $211 million spent. (Cialis was No. 1 at $248.7 million.) Viagra has continued to sell well for Pfizer, bringing in $1.69 billion in 2014 worldwide but recording sales of more than $1.5 billion annually for more than a decade.
- read the IBT article
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