Frustrated by reluctant doctors? At a loss for a new strategy? Convinced ridiculously long TV ads will excite consumers? Forget it. What you really want is for your rival to have a catastrophe. Well, it seems the Celebrex marketing team had its prayers answered the other day when Australia yanked a Cox-2 painkiller, Novartis’ Prestige, over deaths and liver transplants. As Joe Tooley, an analyst at AG Edwards, points out in an investor note this morning, this spells upside for the Pfizer pfolks. This is what he writes…

“In our most current week of prescription data, the painkiller posted over a 3 percent decline in total scrips from year-ago levels. Revenue increases – we project 11 percent revenue growth for 2007 – are coming from price increases and lower rebating, not increases in prescribing volume. Hoping to revive demand and anticipating competition in the US market by this fall, Pfizer launched a comprehensive DTC campaign for Celebrex which included a 2 ½ minute television ad highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of Celebrex.

However, Celebrex may receive an added boost as the Australian government demanded Novartis remove its cox-2 inhibitor Prexige from that market due to liver toxicity concerns. Because of this development, we anticipate Prexige, whose (approval) action date is September 26, may not be approved by the FDA, leaving Celebrex as the only cox-2 inhibitor available in the US. While a US launch of Prexige may have expanded the domestic cox-2 market, the lack of competition will certainly be favorable to Pfizer in the domestic market (as the only player) and in international markets as other countries react to Australia’s decision.”

Perhaps, this development will embolden the Celebrex team to pursue more conventional DTC ads that don’t put everyone to sleep. Of course, the big challenge then will be to avoid more FDA warning letters. Unless, Merck convinces the FDA to return Vioxx to the market. Then, all bets are off.