American InterContinental University
MGMT422-1301A-01: Professor William Becker
February 12, 2013

Innovation is defined as, “something new or different introduced” or, “introduction of new things or methods” (Innovation, 2013). Innovation may be interpreted differently from one person to the next. With individuals that do business, innovation can be interpreted as converting thoughts into capital, making financial worth for consumers, favorable circumstances which can make jobs, or upgrading something that presently exists. One must keep in mind that if innovation did not exist, business as we know it could fall apart.
There are several innovative things that have been popularized over the past few decades. To name a few, there are: digital cameras, the Internet, and the Nintendo Wii. I have decided to discuss Viagra because I think this was an accident as well as a miracle for certain individuals with E.D. The reason I say that this medication was found by accident is because it was originally intended for high blood pressure patients, but it was discovered to be very helpful to males that had E.D. It enabled men to take back control of their sex lives with the aid of a little blue pill (Parnham, 2004). If this is not considered innovation, then what is?
When the primary clinical trials happened, Viagra didn’t have a lot of effect on patients with hypertension; however, it gave males an erection. When the second clinical trial took place, they chose to keep using Viagra to treat E.D. This medication was patented during 1996, and was presented to the United States where it was approved to treat E.D. in March of 1998 (Parnham, 2004). Intrapreneurship was exhausted in presenting Viagra.
One pro of exhausting the Intrapreneurship approach is the fact that developing Viagra was paid for by Pfizer, the creator of Viagra. The fact that there was more than one individual on board, this lowered the anxiety of the chances taken following the failure of the first couple of clinical trials in terms of treating high blood pressure. Yet another pro of this type of approach was that it gave a good reputation to the pharmaceutical company and it also brought in quite a lot of money once the drug was approved for sell. A con of this approach is that due to more than one individual working on Viagra, they had to make certain that they had a good line of communication to make Viagra a success in the marketplace. Management for this pharmaceutical business relied on its workers to make a successful medication to help with Erectile Dysfunction, and it made the employees feel a little bit uncomfortable in doing their jobs (Parnham, 2004).
The primary difficulty that Pfizer had to deal with when introducing Viagra to the market was getting the United States Food and Drug Administration to approve it. I am stating this because the intention of this medication was not for the treatment of E.D. Viagra was thought to be an innovative medication due to the fact that it was the first to treat Erectile Dysfunction by swallowing on pill daily, and there wasn’t anything else like it out there (Parnham, 2004).
References:
Innovation. (2013). Retrieved from Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/innovation
Parnham, M. J. (2004). Viagra: A Chronology. Retrieved from About.com: http://www.about-ed.com/viagra-history