A Frenetic Workday Schedule Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

A Frenetic Workday Schedule - Article Example Before 2005, the insomnia category was written off as not growing or changing. The chief drug to combat insomnia was the brand Ambien (it recorded sales of $ 2.2 billion in 2004 {Brandweek Magazine. â€Å"Marketers of the Year 2006: Lunesta’s Tim Healey and Jay Popli†}), that rose to the top after successfully fighting off other ambitious drugs like Sonata, Halcion and Tylenol P.M. The American public was resigned to the dominance of Ambien in the absence of a better alternative in spite of increasing high-profile cases that highlighted the dangerous side effects of Ambien (such as U.S. Rep. Patrick Kenney’s car crash, a lawyer in Buffalo who ‘messily’ raided his own fridge and tore a towel rack off the wall, the crash of the Staten Island Ferry that killed 11 persons, a Texas bus crash resulting in the death of 8 passengers, and several videos of YouTube depicting people drooling and zonked out (The New York Times. â€Å"Record Sales of Sleeping Pi lls Are Causing Worries†). Into this scenario of sleeplessness and uncertainty came Lunesta. Launched in April 2005 by Marlborough Mass.-based firm Sepracor, it swiftly emerged as the hottest sleeping pill in the U.S today. The Lunesta fairytale success story is based on two factors: a measure of good fortune, and a massive ad budget featuring an irresistible ad. Lunesta initially had two strokes of good fortune: its original name and original and was scrapped. The FDA rejected the brand name ‘Estorra’ on the grounds that it sounded too much like ‘Estrace,’ a prevailing hormone-therapy drug.