Provigil is in the news again. I looked at buying some Cephalon stock a few months back. But Provigil goes off patent in three years, and it’s their only really exciting drug. Their sales are good, for now, but they’re mostly from off-label uses, which are legal but which they can’t promote.
Besides, long-term side effects could appear at any moment. Or somebody could have a psychotic break and kill people after abusing it, and destroy the drug’s reputation. Even if it’s not the drug’s fault, the reputational risk is huge for the company– one underhanded campaign by a rival firm or pressure group, and the stock price is in the toilet.
But it really is an exciting, if troubling, drug: the first really mass-appeal cosmetic psychopharmaceutical. Sure, Prozac and so forth improve our personalities, but they have enough side effects that you only end up with them when you have at least moderately serious behavior problems. This has an obviously unneeded application with scary revolutionary potential. Who wouldn’t find it appealing? Just think of the money you’d save on crank! Think of the economic benefits of three full-time jobs! Suddenly, minimum wage is a living wage! Suddenly, you can take up painting, spend time with the kids! The trains will have to run all night, of course. That’ll be the day.
Secretly Ironic 