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By
Mary
Bellis
"Life might seem cruel,
but they are paid to work for the company and the company owns their inventions.
Literally hundreds of people at Pfizer have been involved in developing
the drug. You can't really point to two individuals and say they spawned
Viagra." - Pfizer Pharmaceuticals spokesperson
According to the British Press (but
not exactly according to Pfizer or others involved), Peter Dunn and Albert Wood both of Kent, England are named as the inventors of the process by
which Viagra was created. Their names appeared on an application by Pfizer
to patent
(WOWO9849166A1) the manufacturing process of Viagra or
Sildenafil Citrate. Dunn and Wood are both employees of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals
at
the Pfizer run research laboratories in Kent and employees are not allowed
to discuss their status or non-status as inventors.
"I can't say anything, you'll
have to talk to the press office..." - Albert Wood
In 1991, inventors Andrew Bell, Dr David
Brown and Dr Nicholas Terrett (also Pfizer employees at Kent) discovered
that chemical compounds belonging to the pyrazolopyrimidinone class were
useful in treating heart problems such as angina. Terrett was named in
the 1991 British patent for Sildenafil (tradenamed Viagra)
as a heart medicine, and some experts consider him as the father of Viagra.
Terrett
is also not allowed to discuss whether he considers himself the real inventor
of Viagra as he is still a Pfizer employee.
"There were three patents
put forward for Viagra. Basically me and my team discovered how useful
the drug might be... they (Wood and Dunn) created a way of mass producing
it only" - Dr. Nicholas Terrett
By I994, Nicholas Terrett and colleague
Peter Ellis discovered during the trial studies of Sildenafil as a heart
medicine that it also increased blood flow to the
penis, allowing men to reverse erectile
dysfunctions. The drug acts by enhancing the smooth muscle relaxant
effects of nitric oxide, a chemical that is normally released in response
to sexual stimulation. The smooth muscle relaxation allows increased blood
flow into the penis leading to an erection when combined with something
naughty. Dunn and Wood then worked on the crucial nine-step process to
synthesize a Sildenafil (Viagra) compound into a
pill. It was approved by the FDA on March 27, 1998, as the first pill to
treat impotence.
Pfizer claims
that hundreds of inventors were involved with the creation of Viagra and
there was not enough room on the patent application to name them all, so
only the department heads were listed. Dr Simon Campbell, who until
recently was the Senior Vice President Of Medicinal Discovery at Pfizer
and oversaw Viagra's development,
is considered
by the American press to be the inventor of
Viagra®.
Campbell prefers to be best known as the father of Amlodipine, a cardiovascular
drug.
"I'm like Columbus..."-
Dr Simon Campbell on Viagra's development
Steps In Making
Viagra
-
Methylation of 3-propylpyrazole-5-carboxylic
acid ethyl ester with hot dimethyl sulfate
-
Hydrolysis with aqueous NaOH to free
acid
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Nitration with oleum/fuming nitric acid
-
Carboxamide formation with refluxing
thionyl chloride/NH4OH
-
Reduction of nitro group to amino
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Acylation with 2-ethoxybenzoyl chloride
-
Cyclization
-
Sulfonation to the chlorosulfonyl derivative
-
Condensation with 1-methylpiperazine.
Empirical formula = C22H30N6O4S
molecular weight = 474.5
solubility = 3.5 mg/mL in water. |
Viagra and
other Prescription Drugs Online
Viagra is prescribed for the treatment
of Male Erectile Dysfunction. Do you have a problem achieving and/or maintaining
an erection sufficient for sexual intercourse? If you found
an ad for Viagra online and answered yes to that last question, you might have been on your way to buying Viagra
online without
seeing a doctor in person. The question was part of a online medical
consultation. Cyberdocs have popped up all over the internet, boosting
Viagra's already fast paced sales. Viagra can have serious side effects,
see your own doctor in person before buying Viagra.
One billion dollars in sales were
made in Viagra's first year of production.
Many lawsuits surround Viagra and Pfizer
including the suit filed for $110 million
dollars on behalf of Joseph Moran, a car dealer from New Jersey, who claimed
that he crashed his car into two parked cars after Viagra caused him to
see blue lightning coming from his fingertips, at which point he blacked out. Moran was driving his Ford thunderbird home from a date at
the time
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