Viagra Corner: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Medicine

VIAGRA WILL cost less than pounds 5 a pill in Britain, roughly half the cost of rival treatments for impotence and a tenth of the price charged by some private clinics.

Pfizer, the manufacturer, which is expected to get a UK licence for it next week, said it had suggested an NHS price of pounds 4.84 each. This is close to its US price of $7.

Goaded by predictions that the drug could cost the NHS over pounds 1bn, the company said yesterday that total spending on the drug would rise to no more than pounds 50 million a year after five years.

A company spokesman said: "Let's face it, a lot of men are no longer interested in sex when they get older. It's a fact. To get a figure of pounds 1bn you would have to assume that every impotent man came forward for treatment and they all had sex four times a week."