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Sometimes Marketing Isn't The Answer: Pfzer Abandons Diabetes Drug Exubera
| Posted by: 5 Blogs Before Lunch October 19, 2007 |
This is a tale of a product that marketing just could not save.Pfizer has announced that after spending $2.8 Billion on its diabetes drug--it would stop selling Exubera, its inhaled insulin, less than two years after introducing the drug. It is an unfathomable failure, in an amazingly short period of time.
The Pfizer marketing machine had gone full-hog in promoting the alternative to insulin injections--all with little affect on sales. Exubera was not able to overcome questions about its safety, efficacy, convenience and cost.
It was the wonder-drug that never was.
At the end of the day, physicians and patients just were unwilling to drink the Pfizer Kool-Aid (or in this case in-hale the Exubera pipe).
The inhaler, which looks a bit like a tennis can or a bong for smoking marijuana, was also an obstacle.
So despite rigorous promotion, fanatical support by company executives, and nearly $3 Billion in shareholder cash, nothing could save a product that did not fit consumer need, and whose use could hurt, not help the health of its users.
“Despite our best efforts, Exubera has failed to gain the acceptance of patients and physicians,” Jeffrey B. Kindler, Pfizer’s chairman, said in a statement.
Proof positive that marketing can not solve all problems.
Source: The New York Times.
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