At long last, the drug known to the pharmaceutical marketplace as ‘Viagra’ will soon be available for sale in generic form, a development which should lower costs of the pill for the average consumer. According to recent press releases from Teva Pharmaceuticals and Greenstone LLC, both these companies will begin selling sildenafil citrate tablets (the same active ingredients in Viagra) to treat erectile dysfunction (ED) in men. This development is made possible by the fact that Viagra’s patent loses its exclusivity in December 2017.
Authorities from Greenstone LLC, which operates out of Pfizer facilities, have stressed that the product will remain entirely the same inside its new, anti-counterfeit packaging. The authorized generic version of Viagra will most likely have just one big visual difference from the brand name version: instead of a little blue pill, consumers can now expect a little white one.
What Viagra Does
Viagra, or sildenafil citrate, was introduced to the marketplace in 1998, chiefly to treat sexual impotence. The drug is a phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitor, and in doses higher than 25mg, it is still most often prescribed to treat ED. Similarly to other pills like Cialis (tadalafil) or Stendra (Avanafil), sildenafil citrate works by increasing blood flow to the penis. But in smaller doses, sildenafil is also used to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension (or, high blood pressure in the lungs) and enlarged prostate glands. This pill does require a doctor’s prescription to obtain, as its applications and dosage will change in relation to a patient’s health history. (See: side effects and health warnings.)
Used as a treatment for ED, sildenafil is most frequently prescribed in doses ranging from 50mg-100mg. But this medicine needn’t be taken daily. (A typical prescription pack contains just between 6-10 pills.) Patients decide when to take the treatment themselves, up to four hours in advance of sexual activity but often within 30-50 minutes. Note that this pill will not work until the user is sexually stimulated.
Price Point Differences
According to data from IQVIA -- a clinical research company -- in 2016 more than 12 million prescriptions for Viagra and Cialis were filled in America, leading to a rough $3 billion in generated revenue. However, prescriptions for these medicines have steadily fallen as users struggle to meet rising costs. Despite the obvious demand for the product, Viagra has become hard to obtain at a reasonable price.
And while many insurance plans currently cover Viagra, uninsured users can now pay up to $50 per pill out-of-pocket, and co-pays for six-pack-tablets of this medicine range from roughly $25-$30 a bottle. In its authorized generic form from Teva, however, sildenafil will be available to certain plan-holders for as little as $0 out-of-pocket copay, according to the company press release. Teva is also working on a savings card for “patients who meet certain requirements,” a plan which will eventually provide some users with a maximum benefit approaching $100 per fill for up to six sildenafil tablet prescriptions.
Greenstone LLC will also be supplying a generic form of sildenafil to treat ED. Because Teva and Greenhouse are the only two companies to have obtained the generic patent rights so far, it is likely that their tablets will reach the market at similar price points. But since Viagra has lost its exclusivity patent, nine more drug companies have already filed to obtain generic sildenafil patents by April 2020. This means that it’s likely that sildenafil prices will only continue to drop for the average consumer in the long term, and sildenafil will soon become widely available for a very manageable cost.
According to an ABC News Report, this may mean consumers eventually see up to a 90% drop in price for sildenafil. Notably, even the brand name engineers of Viagra have not proven immune to all this hubbub. Pfizer (Viagra’s current patent-holder) recently announced several Viagra-related discount programs in an attempt to remain a dominant force in the marketplace. Uninsured consumers determined to keep using the brand name product will soon be able to obtain Viagra via a home-delivery program, and there is a plan in place to lower costs for insured users so packets of six to ten pills may be obtained for as little as a $20 co-pay.
In short, prices are likely to fall for this medicine on every front.
Sildenafil Side Effects, Symptoms, and Safety
In either blue or white pill form, sildenafil does have a few serious side effects and symptoms that all men should discuss with their urologists or primary care physicians before seeking a prescription. People with certain cardiovascular conditions, or an allergy to sildenafil, should not take this medicine. Sildenafil is also not advised for treatment in men taking nitrates for chest pain, or guanylate cyclase stimulators for pulmonary hypertension.
Consistently pairing sildenafil with alpha-blockers or anti-hypertensives of any kind can be very dangerous, and may lead a patient to hypotension or other cardiovascular problems. A few cases of stroke and heart attack have been reported in men taking this medicine, but often these cases have appeared in patients with pre-existing heart conditions, according to the company’s product materials. If you’re worried that any of this may apply to you, consult your healthcare provider at length while negotiating your dosage. There are some other natural, hormonal, or psychological treatments for ED on the market that may be a better fit for your specific needs.
Other negative side effects of this drug include abnormal or sudden loss of vision, back pain, headache, congestion, rash, priapism, or nausea. You should also be sure to contact your doctor if you’ve sustained an erection for more than four hours on this medicine.
Where to Find Sildenafil
As the FDA has not yet approved a version of over-the-counter sildenafil in ED-treating doses (a.k.a., sildenafil one may obtain without a prescription), the only legal way to obtain this treatment in America is via a doctor’s prescription. Most major pharmacies stock and carry Viagra, including WalMart and CVS. Each of these distributors and many more will also carry generic sildenafil.
