A SOUPED-UP DRUG CLONE TURNS FROWNS UPSIDE DOWN
| 
James Westman
Garden-variety depressives aren�t the only ones getting a boost from happy pills. Global sales of prescription antidepressants topped $9.8 billion in 2001, and Celexa, a newer entry billed as having less-troublesome side effects, racked up almost $1 billion. On the downside, last year saw Prozac go generic, siphoning $560 million from Eli Lilly�s revenue stream. Meanwhile, worries over sexual dysfunction, weight change, and dependency cooled the public�s ardor. Forest Laboratories, which distributes Celexa, hopes to keep the good times rolling with its new-and-improved cousin, Lexapro. A peek inside the launch of the latest cheer-us-upper.
Genie in a Bottle
Branding a new drug can be tricky, especially one as similar as Lexapro is to Celexa. Forest Labs is differentiating glad and gladder by a matter of degrees. Both share a genie logo, to suggest freedom and release, but each little guy strikes a different pose. And while Celexa�s bright-blue packaging is meant to convey "high energy," Lexapro�s red was chosen because it "seemed happy," says VP Charles Triano. As for the name, marketers say plosives such as P and K denote strength; Scrabble faves X and Z suggest "drug of the future." Lexapro scores on both counts.
Patent Medicine
WLexapro is a souped-up, stripped-down clone of Celexa � a boon for Forest, which got a new patent term for its next-gen antidepressant as the first pill�s protection was about to expire. AstraZeneca did something similar with heartburn medicine Prilosec. Eli Lilly tried the strategy, but Prozac�s younger brother had harmful effects on the heart. "The difference between Celexa and Lexapro is millimeters," says Harvard psychiatrist William Appleton, author of Prozac and the New Antidepressants. "Lexapro is a way to extend the patent."
What the Doctor Orders
Building buzz means courting the people who write prescriptions. Lexapro�s 2,800 sales reps will hit docs with product literature, free samples, plus wining and dining. But Forest is passing on expensive direct-to-consumer ads. Depressed customers, says VP Triano, "won�t read an ad in Good Housekeeping and jump off the couch to call their doctor." Rivals disagree: Zoloft and Paxil advertise widely, and the industry spent $2.7 billion to reach consumers in 2001.
Split Personality
Celexa belongs to a class of pharmaceuticals based on two mirror-image molecules, called enantiomers. In the case of Celexa, one side delivers the therapeutic effect: bonding with receptors in the brain that control serotonin reuptake. The other side, Forest discovered, had a slight diluting effect. Happily, the molecules could be separated.
Better by Half
Forest tested each of Celexa�s mirrored molecules in isolation. The right-hand enantiomer turned out to be a dud. But the left-hand one � eventually dubbed Lexapro � was a bull�s-eye. In short-term tests, the leaner drug required a lower dose and caused fewer undesirable effects. (On sexual dysfunction, the deal-breaker for many antidepressants, tests are inconclusive.)
| START
| A Smarter Way to Sell Ketchup
| Better Prostitution Through Technology
| Eyes in the Back of Your Mouth
| But Wouldn�t It Be Better With a Motor?
| C�mon, Get Happy!
