Bloomberg Business News today reporting that:
“Traditional herbal remedies for male pattern baldness are losing ground to treatments such as Merck & Co.’s Propecia and Johnson & Johnson’s Rogaine in China, where a full head of black hair on a man is a sign of health and virility…”
Note that Jane Wu, Merck’s PR director in Shanghai, says:
“China’s hair loss treatment market is still in the development stage, and patients have many misconceptions about the treatments available…" Propecia, approved in China since 2001, is “one of Merck’s important, innovative drugs” there.
Thankfully, Bloomberg at least adds that Propecia “was required in April by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to include warning labels linking it to sexual dysfunction that can occur after patients stop using it.”
Still, this reminds me of how when tobacco companies were slammed by state lawsuits in the '90s, they began hitting the Asian markets harder, as those markets were far bigger than the U.S. market, so even if smoking were outlawed in the U.S., they could still earn a healthy profit abroad.
The full story here:
bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-0 … inese.html
PS to Ms. Wu: You might want to tone done the Propecia promotion a bit. If not, in the next few years you’re going to have legions of Chinese men and their families real mad at you when they lean what post-finasteride syndrome is.