Viagra Corner: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Medicine

SALES OF Viagra reached pounds 338m in the six months after its launch, its makers revealed yesterday. The bulk of the sales were in the United States, where the drug was launched last April.

Americans have spent pounds 322m on the wonder drug, compared with pounds 16m in the rest of the world.

The US drugs group Pfizer, which developed the cure for male impotence at its research operation in Sandwich, Kent, said Viagra was the most successful prescription drug ever launched in America.

European regulators granted licences for the drug in European Union countries last month and Pfizer started promoting it to British GPs on Monday. It is awaiting independent recommendations to the Department of Health on how the drug should best be launched on the NHS.