Clinical trial volunteers discovered that they had participated in the development of the famous pill only 30 years later.
If it weren’t for an industrial town in South Wales, there might be no Viagra.
Several men from Merthyr Tydfil, including former steelworkers desperate for cash during the town’s industrial decline, volunteered as guinea pigs for a medical study.
They just didn’t know that this essay would help change the world.
Only 30 years later did some of them discover that the substance they had helped develop laid the foundation for the medicine that helped millions of men suffering from erectile dysfunction.
In the early 1990s, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer was testing a compound called Sildenafil UK-92,480 in an attempt to treat hypertension and angina (chest pain).
The company hired a medical research company in Merthyr Tydfil to carry out clinical trials and recruited local young people to test the compound.
Idris Price was one of the men who signed up to test the new drug in 1992.
Guinea pigs
At the time, he was changing jobs after being laid off from a large local steel company.
“When I was short on money, I went to a place called Simbec,” Idris said.
He asked what studies he could do in exchange for money and signed up.
“They didn’t tell us anything about the medicine. Only that the pill was used to treat angina and that it could have side effects.”
“Many were nervous about what might happen.”
The volunteers, all young people, were paid to take one tablet of the compound UK-92,480 three times a day for 10 consecutive days.
“In the late 80s and early 90s it was a very difficult time for us and we were trying to get money any way we could,” Idris said in the BBC documentary. Continue like this.
“The money the studio paid us was very important to my family, as we had nothing at that time.”
“It allowed us to get extra food and instead of having two bags of coal for the fire, we had five. It was actually the easy money that made a big difference.”
But when the clinical trial ended, the drug’s unexpected side effects set off alarm bells at Pfizer.
How was Viagra discovered?
“Volunteers started saying, ‘It’s a little embarrassing, but I’ve noticed that I’m having more erections than usual and they’re much harder,'” recalls Pete Ellis, the doctor who led the team that discovered and developed Viagra at Pfizer.
Observations made in Merthyr Tydfil led Pfizer to raise money to launch an impotence study.
Patients with erectile dysfunction were assessed at Southmead Hospital in Bristol before another clinical trial was conducted the following year, in 1994, in Swansea.
The clinic at Morriston Hospital in Swansea had the widest range of patients, including men with diabetes and heart disease, for whom erectile dysfunction can be one of the side effects.
“Pfizer wanted them to be heterosexual men in a stable relationship,” recalled the head of this second study and endocrinology consultant, David Price.
“They were all normal guys, all married. Ordinary men from Swansea. The test involved showing them erotic videos.”
A device was placed on the participants’ penis to monitor the impact of the pill.
The results of the Swansea study, like the Bristol study, were positive.
Pfizer quickly realized they had a potentially revolutionary drug on their hands.
In fact, the results were so positive that several men refused to return unused pills in the study.
Pfizer’s marketing team then struggled to figure out how to sell this new pill, while experts wondered whether the public would consider it “extremely good or disastrous.”
The company was concerned about releasing what could be described as a sex drug into a world considered relatively conservative, so it used men’s comments about the trials as an advertising message.
“One idea that emerged from the research was how profoundly powerlessness affects a person’s sense of self, and the other is how much it affects relationships,” said Jennifer Doebler, a former senior marketing manager at Pfizer.
“I was deeply moved by what the men said and how much the dysfunction had damaged their relationships and how much they worried.”
To reinforce its message that a potential cure for impotence could fix troubled relationships, Pfizer won the Vatican’s religious blessing by saying Viagra could help the institution of marriage and strengthen family values.
Worldwide success
Viagra arrived in stores in the United States and United Kingdom in 1998 as the first approved oral treatment for erectile dysfunction, surrounded by an avalanche of publicity.
It quickly became the best-selling drug in history, with peak annual sales in 2008 of nearly $2 billion.
But Idris, unaware that side effects reported by volunteers years ago helped create Viagra, was unaware of Merthyr’s role in the drug’s development until BBC journalists told him earlier this year .
The story of the origin of Viagra in Wales has been made into a film Men at the topwhich will air on the BBC in the UK at Christmas.
“I was shocked when I found out,” Idris said. “Viagra is very well known now… I’m happy he’s out of Merthyr Tydfil.”
Viagra co-creator David Brown said that if it weren’t for the men of Wales, Viagra might not exist.
“They made history,” he said.
“They were probably desperate for extra income, but they made a big difference in a lot of people’s lives and they should feel good about it.”
How common is erectile dysfunction?
Britain’s Health Service says impotence or erectile dysfunction is “very common, especially in men over 40.”
Some research estimates that it can affect around half of men aged between 40 and 70, or more than 4 million men in the UK.
In Brazil, an estimated 16 million men suffer from erectile dysfunction, which is 50% of men over the age of 40.
Other studies suggest that by 2025, 322 million men worldwide could be affected by erectile dysfunction, more than double the 152 million estimated in 1995.
Source: Terra
Rose James is a Gossipify movie and series reviewer known for her in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the latest releases. With a background in film studies, she provides engaging and informative reviews, and keeps readers up to date with industry trends and emerging talents.
