In addition to selling the once-a-week Prozac, Lilly has also re-branded fluoxetine, the active chemical in Prozac, to treat a serious form of premenstrual syndrome.
In 2002, Prozac prescriptions had increased to more than 33 million.
It took the company years to recover from the loss of the antidepressant Prozac in a surprise patent ruling five years ago that caused its shares to drop 30% in just a day.
Prozac's least-popular side effect is a diminished sex drive, and when patients complain to their doctors, they often end up taking Wellbutrin, which can heat the sex drive back up, in addition to Prozac.
The sense of the century unfurling is heightened by chronological order in which the inventions are presented, from the first (the paper clip, devised in 1900 by a Norwegian, Johann Vaaler, living in Germany) to the last (Prozac, which was introduced commercially in Belgium in 1986).
Prozac, in its white gelatin coat, has been lightening up dark moods since its introduction in 1988.
In the process, Prozac became the flagship antidepressant, it's name emblazoned on bestselling books like Prozac Nation and Listening to Prozac.
Unlike their predecessors, these new drugs may be approved for use day in and day out--and they could change the way we view sleep in the same way Prozac and its ilk altered the public discussion about depression and mental illness.
It could become the first totally new type of antidepressant since Prozac came out in 1987.
By 1988, nearly 2.5 million prescriptions for Prozac were dispensed in America.
In studies for drugs like Prozac, that number is generally only 40%.
In the 1990s the antidepressant Prozac did for depression what Valium had done for anxiety: destigmatizing a mood disorder into a treatable illness that might be dealt with using a single pill.
Cymbalta represents an attempt by drugmaker Eli Lilly (nyse: LLY - news - people ) to re-establish itself in the market it built with Prozac.
Indeed, the Prozac patent that was overturned in court was not the patent on the compound, which expires in 2001, but a patent on the use of the compound to treat depression.
Launching fluoxetine as a brand-new drug allows Lilly to reach women and their physicians in a way that new publicity for the Prozac brand won't.
The company emerged victorious in the prominent legal battle to disqualify Eli Lilly 's (nyse: LLY - news - people) patent on Prozac, which was set to expire in 2003.
The news on Prozac sales now is even worse than Lilly (nyse: LLY - news - people ) expected: "With nearly two months of Prozac sales data available, the erosion in prescriptions is the most severe ever for a blockbuster product in our industry, " Taurel said in a conference call this morning.
During the course of its career, Prozac has treated more than 38 million people in 100 countries for clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder.
At its peak, Hazlett says, that drug will bring in only hundreds of millions of dollars, which won't fill the giant chasm left in Lilly's balance sheet by the loss of Prozac.
Lilly (nyse: LLY - news - people ), which built a powerful presence in psychiatric drugs first with its now off-patent Prozac and now with antipsychotic Zyprexa, is following suit with what appears to be an even broader system for disclosing data.
In order to stay in contact with doctors, Lilly needs to keep marketing its Prozac to them.
Both of those drugs--Prozac and Claritin, respectively--now bring in less than one-tenth of the revenue they once garnered.
Prozac is the most commonly prescribed anti-depressant in the United States.
Seroxat and the other SSRI antidepressants (including Prozac, Lustral and Ciprimil) may provoke violence in a small number of people who take them, according to a paper published today on the Public Library of Science Medicine website.
This comes on top of new evidence that Prozac, Paxil and other antidepressants cause suicidal thoughts in children and recent findings that hormone replacement therapy, touted for decades as a panacea for menopause, could increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes, breast cancer and dementia.
It's of little comfort to many investors that analysts say the odds are in Lilly's favor--the analysts said that about Prozac too.
In August 2000, a ruling cut three years off the patent for Prozac, Eli Lilly's hugely successful antidepressant, causing the company's shares to drop by 30% in one day.
Also there's a physiological reason, because when an amount of sunshine enters the retina it will result in the production of serotonin, which is also produced when you take Prozac.
The expected fall of Prozac, which led to the rise of a new class of antidepressants in the 1990s, is probably already built into Lilly's share price, says Mara Goldstein, analyst at CIBC World Markets.
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