Friday, November 7, 2014

Vaginorm - Brought to You by Some Mystified Dudes Who Know How to Turn a Profit

Man, the stuff I run across in my research. It's a few years old, but Phil Smits, some guy who used to head up Bayer's Women's Healthcare was getting pretty excited about the prospects for this drug called...Vaginorm. Vaginorm. That is your go-to-market branding? So is this stuff supposed to make vaginas normal? Or perhaps it helps returns one's vagina to normalcy?

“Vaginorm is an important late stage addition to our Gynecological Therapy R&D pipeline. We are pleased to work with EndoCeutics towards bringing a new treatment alternative for vaginal atrophy and female sexual dysfunction to an area of high unmet medical need,” said Phil Smits, M.D., Head of Women’s Healthcare at Bayer Schering Pharma. “Gynecological Therapies are a new growth area adding to our contraception business. Our research, in-licensing and innovation efforts are all geared towards this strategic goal.” 

Oh. Well...there you go. So its a drug for vagina normalization! Hmm. I think I see.
Uh...is that sort of like Spanish Fly in BIG PHARMA-speak?

OK, I'm not an expert on menopause. Please, don't think I'm saying that it is not a real health concern with potential complications. But this is the same guy who had his Division turning revenues at $16B annually, (of which women's contraception drove 45)%. This same organization by the way, also currently has tallies of over $1B in legal settlements for health complications, (some as serious as death), for the marketing of it contraceptive Yaz. So pardon me for being a little skeptical that he's got women's health in mind.
"You know I don't know what all is happening there for you ma'am but  I'll do my best to get it functionally sexy."

Mr. Smits has now moved on to running Bayer's Business in the Middle East in which he now has the pleasure of turning down requests for affordable pharmaceuticals to women in India. 
Well, who am I to throw stones?
I used to be a minor war-profiteer myself.

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