But the Chantix story does suggest a solution to Pfizer's larger problems: Clone Jotham Coe.
Pfizer says Chantix has had a strong uptake in the U.K., France, Belgium and Japan.
The biggest new drug launch, for the anti-smoking pill Chantix, fizzled over worries about psychiatric side effects.
At Pfizer, sales of top seller Lipitor actually dipped slightly, while Chantix, a once-promising anti-smoking drug, saw sales plummet.
The fact that Chantix is under patent until 2018 bodes well for Pfizer.
UCSF's Benowitz notes that smokers can experience dark moods and bad behaviors when they quit smoking, Chantix or no.
Sales of Chantix last quarter were down 35% in the U.S., although that decline was offset by international sales.
My experience so far is that Chantix is the best medicine we have.
That was more than it was forecasting for Sutent, an innovative cancer pill, or Chantix, a first-of-its kind anti-smoking drug.
Chantix is more effective than Zyban, an antidepressant, but the large majority of patients still don't succeed in stopping smoking.
Then in May, the Institute for Safe Medicine Practices issued a report linking Chantix to more side effects, including traffic accidents.
Few understand cigarettes' iron grip better than the man who invented Chantix.
Pfizer says that some cases where there were neurological and psychiatric symptoms associated with Chantix may have been complicated by nicotine withdrawal.
Last November, the Food and Drug Administration issued an alert saying it was looking into neurological and psychological side effects for Chantix.
Not everyone agrees that Chantix is the way to provide that empowerment.
At that point, Pfizer stopped airing ads that advertised Chantix by name.
Only 30% of patients on Zyban have been able to stay off cigarettes entirely after 12 weeks, compared with 45% who take Chantix.
Even before Chantix was launched, Pfizer was trying to guard against the possibility that patients might be disappointed--and flee the drug en masse.
Pfizer pays 16 counselors trained at a special Mayo clinic program to respond to Chantix customers who are feeling the urge to smoke.
Its own communications to Wall Street before Chantix went on sale described the anti-smoking market as prone to dramatic sales spikes and stomach-heaving drops.
By the time the first Chantix TV ads featuring a tortoise and a hare aired this September, the drug was already a bona fide hit.
An analysis of neurological and psychiatric effects in placebo-controlled Chantix studies of 5, 000 patients will be presented at a medical meeting in Rome later this month.
Until Chantix was approved, smokers had two drug options: nicotine replacement, including patches, gums and inhalers, and Zyban, a generic antidepressant developed by GlaxoSmithkline a decade ago.
About 6% of patients who have Chantix are enrolled in the program, called GetQuit, and each call between a patient and counselor lasts an average of 9.5 minutes.
Brand awareness is a critical part of selling a new drug and Pfizer has been spending more on marketing in the last year to get potential quitters interested in Chantix.
His father says his son was a happy-go-lucky session man, but in the week after he started taking Chantix he became combative over what used to be minor business details.
In 2006, just after Chantix hit the market, Pfizer's chief marketer, Ian Read, warned Wall Street that insurance companies don't view smoking treatments as something they need to pay for.
Coe is now striking back against tobacco: A medicine he invented, called Chantix, is turning out to be the most powerful antismoking drug ever, and Pfizer's biggest surprise hit in a decade.
Chantix, launched in May 2006, is the only drug designed specifically to combat nicotine addiction ever sold in the U.S. Previous stop-smoking aids either contain nicotine, like gums and patches, or are re-purposed antidepressants.
应用推荐