Watson Pharmaceutical’s associated company; Watson Laboratories have applied for an ANDA (Abbreviated New Drug Application) from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) for the marketing of Viagra’s active ingredient, sildenafil citrate. With this key ingredient they hope to market a generic form of Viagra, presumably one of many pharmaceutical companies hoping to do the same thing considering Pfizer’s patent for the erectile dysfunction treatment is expiring this year.
Last week Pfizer took action against Watson over the premature commercialization of their generic version of the product which resulted in a delay in the application process and which will now see Watson wait until 2013 before the approval of their ANDA is decided unless another decision is made before the courts.
We should expect a wave of new generic Viagra products to apply for regulatory approval soon but in the meantime, last year’s sales came to a whopping 1 billion dollars for Pfizer. It will be a long time yet before we see this erectile dysfunction treatment lose its popularity.