Firstmed Blog

They stock our medicine cabinets and yet it occurred to me that that the average consumer knows very little about the pharmaceutical industry. It occurred to me that it might be interesting to talk a bit about the pharmaceutical giants behind the three main erectile dysfunction treatments, namely Pfizer’s(Viagra), Bayer HealthCare (Levitra) and Lilly Icos (Cialis).

Bayer is a German chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in Barmen, Germany in 1863. Today it is headquartered in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and has some 60,000 employees worldwide and generated sales of EUR 11,724 million in 2006. It is perhaps most well-known for its original brand of aspirin but that is not the only thing Bayer has discovered. The following is a list of some of Bayer’s most famous discoveries.

Aspirin - a pain reliever, arguably the most successful drug ever

Heroin (diacetylmorphine) - an addictive drug, originally sold as a cough treatment, and arguably the most successful illegal drug ever. Heroin was a Bayer trademark, until World War I.

Ciprofloxacin - an antibiotic used to treat anthrax and urinary tract infections.

Levitra - a treatment for Erectile Dysfunction

Polycarbonate - the material of the CD, Lego etc. (Makrolon)

Pfizer Inc is the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company. The company is based in New York City. Pfizer Limited, the UK subsidiary, has become the largest Pharmaceutical Company in the UK. The Company is the top supplier of medicines to the NHS and every month in 2005, over two million patients in the UK were prescribed a Pfizer medicine. With 2005 actual spending of $7.4 billion in research & development (R&D), Pfizer boasts the industry’s largest pharmaceutical R&D organization: Pfizer Global Research and Development. It produces

Lipitor (atorvastatin) - used to lower blood cholesterol
Diflucan (fluconazole) - oral antifungal medication
Zithromax (azithromycin) - long-acting antibiotic
Viagra (sildenafil citrate) - ED medication
Celebrex (celecoxib) - anti inflammatory
Chantix - Anti-Smoking pill

Lilly Icos is a global pharmaceutical company and one of the world’s largest corporations. Its global headquarters is located in Indianapolis, Indiana, in the United States. A Fortune 500 corporation, Lilly Icos had revenues of $15.6 billion in 2006, making it the 148th largest company in the United States. Among the company’s major pharmaceutical breakthroughs are

Prozac (fluoxetine) - the world’s most successful selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor for the treatment of clinical depression.
Insulin – treatment for diabetics
Cialis – ED medication
Gemzar - treatment of pancreatic cancer