This one is trivial, but jolly-good fun. Here -- a few days back -- we have Mr. Herper quoting "Serial Ex-CEO" Fred Hassan -- for his decidedly unintended comedic effect. When quoted, Hassan was the soon-to-be Ex-CEO of Pharmacia. As we all know, he then went on to become the infamous (notorious?) Ex-CEO of Schering-Plough. . . and is now firmly on a track -- to become the Ex-Chairman of Bausch & Lomb.
[Strangely, I am here put in mind of the line Jeff Goldblum, as the mathematician Ian Malcolm, Ph.D., utters -- in the first Jurassic Park movie -- "I am always on the lookout for the next Ex-Mrs. Malcolm. . ."
Yep -- Fred's like that.] In any event, to Forbes:
. . . ."It's sort of like winning the battle and losing the war," says William Boden, a cardiologist at the University of Buffalo". . . .
Inspra was launched in 2003 by Pharmacia, with high hopes that it would become a big drug in helping to control the blood pressure of heart failure patients. Pharmacia chief executive Fred Hassan called it "a significant advance."
Pfizer bought Pharmacia later that year -- and barely marketed it. Pfizer [as corrected] barely marketed it and it flopped. Most doctors believe that spironolactone, a very old drug that costs $4 a month, does the same thing. Inspra, by contrast, costs $130 a month."We use a truckload of spironolactone," says James Stein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "It's hard to beat a drug that costs four bucks at Wal-Mart and has been around for fifty years." He says he mainly switches patients to Inspra when men had breast growth or tenderness, a side effect he says is rare. . . .
Indeed -- so, will privately-owned (but Warburg Pincus financed, and backed) Bausch & Lomb turn out to be the next Ex-Mrs. Ian Malcolm, Ph.D., or will Time-Warner ultimately fill that role? Time will tell.
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