The failed heart medicine that became a cultural phenomenon.
Image details
Bill Branson / National Cancer Institute. Public domain.
Researchers at the National Cancer Institute laboratory in Frederick, Maryland, 2000. Used as an illustration.
Source image · Public domain — NIH/NCI work; reuse restrictions none
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Viagra is a story about noticing the result you did not set out to find. A program aimed elsewhere produced an unmistakable signal, and a pharmaceutical team chose to follow it into a category that barely existed in public conversation.
The episode examines the discovery, the cultural conditions around its launch, and the unusual relationship between a drug’s scientific mechanism and the meaning society assigns to it.
The finished episode will pair narrative reporting with primary-source research, archival material, and conversations with people close to the story.
This space is reserved for sources, reading notes, timelines, and corrections published alongside the episode.
The edited transcript will appear here when the episode is released.