North Korean ‘Viagra’ (Neo-Viagra) — podría funcionar...

North Korea has made some eye-popping claims over the years about its pharmaceutical products. Like the injections that cure everything from bird and camel flu to diabetes and “spontaneous gangrene.” 

And like “Neo-Viagra,” North Korea’s purportedly herbal version of Pfizer’s superstar medicine. According to the box, it not only counteracts “sexual dysfunction” in both men and women, but relieves back pain and high blood pressure. 

Well, chuckle no more. It turns out that Neo-Viagra might actually work. 

A Washington Post reporter visiting Pyongyang in May bought a box of the North ­Korean-produced medicine to treat erectile dysfunction, then sent it to a Pfizer lab in Massachusetts to be tested. 

Surprisingly, each dose of Neo-Viagra — brown granules in a vial that looks like traditional Korean medicine — turned out to contain 50 milligrams of sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra. The little blue genuine Viagra pills come in 50- and 100-milligram doses. 

“Lab analysis of the product known as ‘Neo-Viagra’ . . . did detect the presence of sildenafil,” said Yasar Yaman, Asia-Pacific director for Pfizer’s global security team. “Sildenafil is the active ingredient in Viagra, however this is a different formulation to the sildenafil found in authentic Pfizer tablets.” 

Pfizer couldn’t say whether the medicine would actually work or was safe because it had not conducted any clinical trials, and the reporter was not successful in convincing any male acquaintances to try it. 

But the fact that Neo-Viagra, made by the state-owned Korea Oriental Instant Medicinal Center, is being marketed as an “herbal medicine” when it contains the synthetic drug sildenafil, “poses a threat to patient health and safety,” Yaman said. 

After testing the medicine sent to it by The Post, Pfizer said it was “currently reviewing” whether to take any action against the North Korean manufacturers for patent or copyright infringement.(Más)