Nobel laureate to help drive Baiyunshan's 'golden spear'

Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical Holdings Co Ltd, a Chinese pharmaceutical company, has roped in the services of well-known Nobel laureate Ferid Murad to produce and market generic variants of popular erectile dysfunction medicine Viagra.

The company, which has chalked out an ambitious growth plan, hopes to launch two variants - the Jin'ge, which is quite similar to Viagra, and the Baiyunshan Tiema, a drug made from traditional Chinese medicine ingredients. The two products will hit the market next month and would be first generic versions of Viagra in China, according to the Shanghai-listed company.

Murad, Nobel Prize winner for physiology and medicine in 1998 and widely known as the Father of Viagra, said he had developed a huge interests in traditional Chinese medicine.