Celebra Seen as Next Blockbuster Pill

Drug makers, eyeing Viagra’s runaway success with profit envy, expect the drive for arthritis relief will yield the next wonder drug.

Some industry experts believe Celebra, a painkiller that cuts inflammation but avoids the stomach-damaging effects of aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen, could outsell the impotency drug made by Pfizer Inc. by millions of dollars a year. Viagra became the fastest-selling drug in history its first month.

The new class of super painkillers could be on pharmacy shelves within months. And industry watchers believe millions of Americans will gladly toss their bottles of common painkillers for an alternative that saves their stomachs.

Typical estimates call for annual Viagra sales to reach $3 billion by 2002. Celebra sales could eventually top $4 billion, said Salomon Smith Barney analyst Christina Heuer.

With the global market for prescription painkillers, not including over-the-counter sales, at $5 billion, Heuer predicts Celebra could be “the most significant new drug introduction of 1999.”

Celebra is expected to be the first out of the blocks of a new class of drugs called cox-2 inhibitors, so named because they block the inflammatory enzyme cyclooxygenase. Aspirin and similar anti-inflammatory drugs do that too, but they go too far, also blocking the cox-1 enzyme that protects the stomach lining.

Celebra’s manufacturer, Monsanto Corp.’s Searle unit, is expected to ask the Food and Drug Administration for an expedited six-month review by September. If all goes as expected, the drug could be on the market by early next year in the United States and late 1999 abroad.

Having tested Celebra’s effects on rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and dental pain, scientists are now researching signs that Celebra might help prevent colon cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, in which cox-2 is believed to play a role.

If it is approved for rheumatoid arthritis, the most severe joint disease, doctors would be free to prescribe it for a number of painful conditions.

Searle will have to move quickly. Merck & Co. is about six months behind in developing a rival painkiller named Vioxx. Glaxo Wellcome, Johnson & Johnson and Roche Laboratories also have cox-2 drugs on the way. However, Merck and Searle are entangled in a legal battle over patents.

Pfizer would market Celebra under an agreement reached with Searle before its parent Monsanto agreed to be acquired by American Home Products Co.

Wall Street appears to be betting on Celebra.

“Cox-2, that’s potentially the next big blockbuster, and I think Monsanto and Pfizer have the upper hand,” said Hemant K. Shah, an independent drug industry analyst in Warren, N.J. “The first product always has the advantage.”