Pfizer, manufacturers of Viagra, the anti-impotence drug for men, has insisted that checks and balances in dispensing will ensure that a "recreational drug" similar to ecstasy does not come on the market.
At a news conference at the plant yesterday, the Pfizer managing director in Cork, Mr Paddy Caffrey, said the company's function was to manufacture the drug, which had been licensed after careful consideration by the US and EU authorities.
It was designed to cure a debilitating condition but it would be for doctors to decide whether patients under their care should be allowed have it. Pfizer personnel had been giving doctors all the relevant information concerning the clinical trials.
The powdered base for the drug is shipped from Cork to tabletmaking facilities in France, the US and Puerto Rico. The demand for the drug is such that 1,400 kilos of the base leaves the Cork plant every week.
Now that the European authorities had given the go-ahead for the sale of Viagra, even greater demand was expected, Mr Caffrey said, but Pfizer was confident it could supply all the needs of markets on both sides of the Atlantic.
Viagra now accounts for 15 per cent of the capacity at the Ringaskiddy plant, where 320 people are employed. Over the past six years, the company has invested almost $200 million in new plant and facilities in Ringaskiddy and expects to invest a further $300 million over the next four years on further production capacity. As of now, some 3.5 million prescriptions have been written for Viagra throughout the world.