The 10 Weirdest Drug Stories of the Month
It’s the last weekend of the month and, per tradition, BNET brings you its weirdest drug stories of December 2008 — all the news that was too minor to mention at the time, but too strange to go unnoted.
Doc lets Botox prices fall and rise with Dow
Dr. Donald Altman of Irvine, Calif., charges $1 per unit of Allergan’s Botox for every 1,000 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Index. He’s hoping the tumbling stock market will act like a discount for customers who still want wrinkle-free brows.- Late Pfizer rep’s family gets Extreme Home Makeover
Thomas Girard was laid off by Pfizer. He fell behind on his mortgage. Then his house burned down. Then he and his son drowned. So Ty Pennington and the gang from ABC showed up to re-do his family’s home. - 82-year-old, crazed by Viagra, restrained by cops in Italy
The guy took Pfizer’s ED pill but his wife felt it would be a strain on his heart and that he might die of “passion.” So she called the police. Man was furious. - Lilly workers enter Guinness book with longest mural
The painting, eight football fields long on a block of Madison Avenue in Indianapolis, now counts as the longest mural in the world. - King Pharma publishes EpiPen cookbook
It make a lot of sense, if you think about it: A recipe guide for people with life-threatening allergies (that can be alleviated with the epinephrine auto-injector). - Novartis CEO buys $3.8 million Manhattan apartment from Obama team member
Novartis CEO Robert pelzer paid $3.8 million for a three-bedroom place on 51st Street. The seller was Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, a member of President Obama’s transition team. The apartment has a “spa-like” en suite bathroom to its master bedroom. - Coartem execs: No yanks allowed!
At a conference on tropical diseases, Novartis employed guards to keep U.S. docs from seeing information at a promo booth for about Coartem, an anti-malarial drug. It’s approved in many countries but not in the U.S. - GSK uses canal water to cool its computers
At its London HQ, GlaxoSmithKline is cooling its data center with a heat exchange system utilizing a nearby canal. - Roche builds big solar power plant on its roof, then leaves the building
Roche will complete Pala Alto’s largest ever solar power project on the roof of its campus but has no plans to take advantage of it. It’s committed to leaving the city. - Boehringer drug trials spur documentary on Viagra for women
Boehringer-Ingelheim is testing flibanserin, an alleged cure for “female sexual dysfunction” (i.e. when women who don’t want to have sex). Some people think this is disease mongering and that the condition doesn’t exist. The controversy has inspired a movie, “Pharma Sutra.”
Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.
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