IT WAS A MOMENT OF BREATHTAKING naivete. Staffers at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had been preparing for years to launch Viagra, the now infamous anti-impotence drug. After years of clinical studies, they knew it would be a blockbuster product, but they didn't realize its cultural ramifications. One day a team member mused: Gee, do you think Leno or Letterman might someday tell a Viagra joke? They mulled the question. Maybe. It could happen. Two months later, they were on a runaway train. Pfizer chairman Bill Steere recalls days when he'd fall asleep to Leno's Viagra jokes, wake up to Imus's and come home to his wife's latest yucks. Six months later he still seems shellshocked. ""Nobody used to talk about impotence,'' says Steere. ""Now [people] come up to me and tell me about their Viagra moments. I can't believe the things people say.''
Imagine being the manager of the Beatles in 1964, walking down the airplane ramp during their first trip to America--and into all-out pandemonium. That's what this year has been like for Team Viagra, the 60-odd staffers charged with moving the drug from Pfizer labs to consumers' night stands. Since its April launch, Viagra has become the fastest-selling drug in history. But behind the avalanche of headlines lie the staffers whose lives have been consumed by the project. Team leader David Brinkley, a 41-year-old Pfizer veteran who helped in licensing Lipitor, Pfizer's cholesterol drug, has spent the last four years preparing to bring Viagra to market. Even as the hype fades there are dozens of issues for him to deal with, from explaining why 130 people have died while on Viagra to why sales have fallen so sharply. The result: he can't remember the last time he ate a weekday meal outside Pfizer headquarters. For Brinkley and his colleagues, the publicity was a mixed blessing: it brought huge brand awareness--Viagra is now almost as recognized as Coca-Cola--but the jokes hampered the team's ability to drive home its message that impotence (clinical term: erectile dysfunction) is a serious medical malady. Otherwise, they risked insurers' refusing to cover it, and the company's reputation for probity. The early hype also inflated investors' hopes, creating heartburn when sales returned to earth. But as the national giggling quiets down and Viagra becomes just another drug, there are few regrets. ""I would not have traded the experience of working on Viagra for anything in the world,'' Brinkley says.
For Pfizer, Viagra has been a boon to the bottom line and a big test for the corporate culture. Even within the stodgy drug business, Pfizer has a reputation for being starchy and ultraconservative. Jackets stay on during meetings; one hallway is lined with pictures of geezerish Pfizer chairmen dating from 1849. Team members describe a desensitization process, as the red faces of the first meeting (""I can't believe she just said "erection' 14 times'') faded to clinical detachment. The only remaining squirms come when staffers talk with their children about their work. Kids under 10 have a vague awareness that Dad's job involves a drug for men, executives say; teenagers know all the details.
Viagra is old news to Pfizer scientists, who toiled on it for more than a decade. But for Brinkley's team, the real crush of work began on March 27 at 10:37 a.m., when the Food and Drug Administration's approval for Viagra scrolled through their war-room fax machine. The weeks that followed were a blur of windowless conference rooms and Mr. Teng's Chinese takeout, as day and night blended and the only signifier of weekends was the need to remind custodians to keep the ventilation system running. From its prelaunch planning, the team knew Viagra created unusual challenges. Rounding up focus-group volunteers to develop marketing for an allergy medication takes a week; for each of Viagra's scores of focus groups, finding men willing to talk about their limp penises could take a month. Consider another usually simple issue: how many pills to put in a package? For most meds, it's a no-brainer; with Viagra, says market researcher Janice Lipsky, it could send messages about what's a ""normal'' sex life. Their solution: leave quantities up to doctors.
Long before the launch, the team pondered Viagra's potential societal implications. They hired prominent University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan to pepper them with hypotheticals. How will Pfizer respond when a rapist uses Viagra? (It's out of Pfizer's control, they say.) What if nursing homes complain about requiring more private rooms to facilitate patient romance? Should Alzheimer's patients receive the drug? In the wake of Viagra- mania, apocryphal tales arose. No, Pfizer didn't ask the Vatican to bless the new drug, though staffers did meet with papal science advisers to explain that it's not an aphrodisiac. No, the name ""Viagra'' wasn't chosen because it connotes the unyielding power of Niagara Falls. The name was drawn randomly from a database of potential names; in fact, the diamond-shaped blue pill that launched a billion erection jokes was almost called ""Alond.''
For a drug that's all about sex, the team's most grueling work is extremely unsexy. Typical was last Thursday's meeting, in which five staffers--a lawyer, doctor, pharmacist, psychologist and marketer--were nit-picking over a brochure explaining why HMOs should pay for Viagra. Can they really call erectile dysfunction a ""serious'' condition, or is ""significant'' fairer? (""Significant'' wins out.) Should the Viagra logo be on every page, or is that too hucksterish? (Tone down the branding, they decide.) Can we increase this type size to conform with FDA guidelines? The work of this Review Committee, which combs over every training manual, sample box and advertisement, is mind-numbing but critical: one misstep could misinform patients, add fuel to lawsuits or lead the FDA to recall the materials. ""It all hinges on a word or a nuance or a phrasing,'' says team leader Brinkley.
Pfizer's ad agency faced a more creative challenge: how to tout the drug without provoking giggles or squirms? Their goal isn't to convince impotent men of Viagra's merits--it's getting the nine out of 10 impotent men who won't discuss their problem with a doctor to do so, since doctors will prescribe Viagra to most impotence patients once they're in the door. Complicating their job: all those jokes. ""Essentially people like [Leno and Letterman] set the tone for the brand, and not exactly the right tone,'' says Carol DiSanto, senior VP at Cline, David & Mann, Pfizer's agency. Its sober ads seek to reposition the drug. One planned TV spot features an older married couple dancing closely while a narrator talks about the joy of renewing an intimate relationship. Soon came a personal sell: last week Pfizer announced Bob Dole will appear in TV ads promoting impotence treatments beginning this winter.
When Viagra hit the market, Wall Street got hot and bothered just as fast as patients. That meant long days for Pfizer's investor-relations team. The day before FDA approval, Pfizer stock stood at $95; a month later it hit $122. For years Pfizer had been trying to get its stock, a darling among institutional investors, into the portfolios of more mom-and-pop investors. The reason: retail investors are more loyal than the fickle pros, who will dump a stock at the slightest bad news. The buzz around Viagra did the trick; since its launch, Pfizer's shareholder base has doubled to 825,000 investors, meaning more proxies to mail and phone calls to answer. ""We had to do a lot of handholding ... to keep the analysts calm, keep them from getting too wild,'' says senior VP Lou Clemente. As prescriptions soared, so did some sales estimates, from optimistic to rosy to absurd. One figured Viagra could be a $10 billion drug. Since sales have slowed to a more normal rate, most analysts bet Viagra will sell between $1 billion and $2 billion next year.
Down in the media-relations department, where walls are covered with framed headlines (VIAGRA BOOSTS BORDELLO BUSINESS), the toughest work came late last spring. That's when the first reports trickled in that men were dying while on Viagra. Among the 130 confirmed deaths: Mike Howorth, 65, of Visalia, Calif., who passed out while making love to his wife, Gerri, on May 29 and died two days later. ""I can't say that Viagra killed my husband, but I do say that Viagra contributed to it,'' she says. ""If I can make one man think twice before taking that pill, it's worth [speaking out].'' The deaths didn't rattle Pfizer's team; they're a part of the drug biz, and studies suggested that because so many impotent men suffer from cardiac problems, even more deaths might have occurred as unhealthy hearts are strained by the rigors of sex. Although Pfizerites feel they've been pummeled by negative press lately, competitors argue they've gotten off easy. ""I just don't think the Viagra death issue has gotten the kind of scrutiny is merits,'' says Dr. Neil Gesundheit of Vivus, which sells a rival anti-impotence drug called Muse and who disputes Pfizer's safety claims. Despite the uproar, doctors say most patients are still willing to try Viagra. ""I think about [the risk], but the tradeoff is worth it,'' says a 64-year-old Maryland user.
As the hype surrounding Viagra begins to deflate, employees hope Pfizer's myriad other drugs--Lipitor for cholesterol, Zoloft for depression, Norvasc for hypertension, along with a pipeline that includes treatments for everything from migraines and fungal infections to diabetes and incontinence--get their turn in the limelight. But even if they don't, Pfizer may profit. Doctors confirm Pfizer's claim that patients who come in complaining of impotence are often diagnosed with serious illnesses that cause it, like heart disease, high blood pressure or prostate problems. That warms the heart of Pfizer VP Marie-Caroline Sainpy, whose cardiac-drug team sells treatments for those ailments. Their sales are rising thanks to Viagra. Sales rep Jesus (Augie) Gayoso, a 43-year Pfizer veteran, sees the benefits, too. Before Viagra, he couldn't get in the door to see certain physicians; now he's welcome everywhere.
Back at headquarters, Brinkley and his team occasionally get misty-eyed while watching videos from couples who claim their marriages were saved by the drug. Chairman Steere says no fewer than 20 of his colleagues running Fortune 500 companies are enthusiastic users. As Viagra-mania fades, employees talk excitedly about the upcoming launch of Celebrex, a new class of arthritis drug called a ""Cox-2 inhibitor'' that goes on sale this winter; some analysts say it will be bigger than Viagra. It won't win the acclaim of ""the love drug,'' but that may be a good thing. After a year spent helping so many Americans have sex, Team Viagra may finally get to go home and have some itself.
A YEAR OF UPS AND DOWNSPfizer sells drugs for all sorts of maladies, but its impotence cure stole the show in '98. Users credit Viagra with restorative powers; critics say it's caused accidents and death. Here are some highlights:
Founded in 1849, Pfizer produced penicillian during World War II
March 27 Viagra gets the go-ahead from the FDA
April In the first month 598,000 prescriptions for Viagra are filled
May 1 On "Larry King Live," Dole touts Viagra as a great drug. "Well, I wish I'd have bought stock early," he says, and tells of being in test program.
May 21 The FDA, responding to press inquiries about Viagra, confirms it has received reports of six deaths among those who have used the drug
May-June Adviser to Air Line Pilots Association warns pilots about using Viagra, citing blurred vision, color tingeing and other side effects
July 1 Joseph Moran, 53, crashes his car after taking Viagra. Says he was distracted by strange blue visions. Files a lawsuit asking for $110 million from Pfizer.
Oct. 13 Third-quarter revenue for Pfizer is 21% higher than for the same period in 1997. Viagra sales slip from the previous quarter.
NOV. 23 The FDA says it has received reports of 130 deaths in the United States of men who have died after using Viagra
Nov. 24 Pfizer and the FDA issue new health warnings on the use of Viagra--particularly among men with heart problems and high blood pressure
PFIZER AND ITS RIVALSRecent proposed mergers among drug companies have created industry giants. Pfizer ranks eighth in worldwide sales.
ANJALI ARORA