The Story of Influenza Antivirals: Part 15

Creating the marketplace

How do you get people to take pharmacological action against something that hits them on average once a year and lasts a few days, like acute respiratory infections? They have been around since creation and are extremely familiar to everyone around the globe, including animals.

Acute respiratory infections manifest themselves with a range of symptoms - from none all the way to pneumonia and death from respiratory failure. Thankfully this happens only in a minority of cases.

To sell, you have to have a market, but familiarity breeds contempt. So you have to create a market for your products, be they medicinals, opinions, careers, research funds or whatever.

One approach is to confuse a syndrome with a disease. This means using the F Word “Flu”, a terrible Anglo-Saxon colloquialism which is used all over the world, even by WHO and the US CDC. Using the F word, you are bundling up familiar signs and symptoms, fever, ache and pains, tiredness, cough, and runny nose due to numerous but uncoun…