Prozac celebrated(!) its 20th birthday recently. The world’s first[1] superstar drug arrived on the golden shores of our minds in 1987 – the year Bon Jovi made it big with Livin’ on Prayer. I can’t think of a better companion piece[2].

P-zac

In 2001 Prozac alone brought in $2.7 billion for Eli Lily & Co. The mega success of this drug and successor blockbusters allowed big pharma to go from geek-street types who marketed to doctors with paperweights and golf umbrellas to hight street lifestyle vendors who market to consumers directly on prime time television. And the transition has been telling. Eli Lily no longer bother developing drugs that they do not believe will realise at least $500 million in annual sales.
The following is from BusinessWeek in 2001 (which also contains the above figures)

Says Mara Goldstein, an analyst with CIBC World Markets: “Sometimes products look good on paper, but they don’t turn out that way in reality.” In 1998, for instance, the company launched Evista–which can prevent and reverse osteoporosis in older women–in the hopes that it would become an overnight success. But first-year sales came to a less-than-spectacular $144 million. Why? Taurel says it was harder than expected to convince women to buy the drug before they have symptoms of the degenerative bone disease. But after Lilly tweaked its marketing effort, the drug took off, with sales expected to top $700 million this year. It is a blockbuster after all.

Prozac changed the game on better living through chemistry. Medication has become a personal choice and we are embracing its promise to bathe our neurons and genitals in a soft golden light.
I myself have a chronic prescription for a mood stabilizer – Lamictogrine, marketed as Lamictin in South Africa. The dose that I’ve been prescribed (50mg) is apparently just about the threshold dose(placebo?) – but my life is better through chemistry. In my case I don’t feel dependant on it for my ability to function – but I am concerned that I’m becoming fearful of not having it. What if something happens? In some small way I’ve become afraid of being scared of my brain without its medication.
But that’s a topic for a different post. This is about the evolution of big pharmaceutical companies into lifestyle giants and their bitches, pharma-ho’ doctors.

classic Adbusters

The Guardian has a look at 20 years of happiness in Eternal Sunshine. From this article there is one paragraph in particular that blew my mind

Enter liquid Prozac in peppermint flavour. In the US, a survey of drug companies found that between 1995 and 1999, use of Prozac-like drugs for children aged seven to 12 increased by 151 per cent, and in those aged under six by 580 per cent. In 2004, children aged five and under were America’s fastest-growing segment of the non-adult population using antidepressants. ‘Selective mutism’ (fear of speaking in social situations) is one affliction common in preschoolers and has been treated with Prozac.

Peppermint Prozac – could it be any simpler[3]?

But of course I shouldn’t be surprised in the least at Peppermint Prozac. Jonathan Franzen sees the truth in The Corrections

Golden sunlight fell across the blankets in her windowless room.

[1] That other pharma-juggernaut, Viagra, only became available in 1998.
[2] Except, of course, for Van Halen’s Jump! But that was 1984.
[3] It’s also available in chewable tablet form for that on-the-go bliss.