Pharmacist Scot Silber thought he was sitting on a gold mine when he developed a drug compound to help men suffering from sexual dysfunction.
Silber, part-owner of Green Valley Drugs, combined Valium and Viagra into a single pill and called it Vegas Mixx. He advertised it with the promise that the combination would mellow the mind, relax the muscle that causes ejaculation and provide a lasting erection.
Silber invested thousands of dollars in research and an edgy Internet marketing campaign, promising men in obscene terms on a Web site that they could perform “like a porn star.”
Silber owned the pharmacy with entertainer Danny Gans, who was known for his squeaky-clean Christian image and died May 1 of a prescription narcotics overdose.
Gans was not aware of Vegas Mixx, Silber said. “As you could probably guess, he would not have approved,” he said.
As reported on “Face to Face With Jon Ralston,” Silber took the Vegas Mixx Web site down about a month ago. And now, after years of effort, Silber says, he no longer fills prescriptions for the drug. Vegas Mixx was a bust.
But Silber could face bigger troubles. Green Valley Drugs is a compounding pharmacy – meaning it can combine unique mixes of drugs, based on a doctor’s prescription – but may have been operating outside the bounds of its license. That could lead to investigations by the Nevada State Pharmacy Board and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Larry Pinson, executive director of the pharmacy board, would not say whether the board was investigating Green Valley Drugs. And while he could not talk specifically about Vegas Mixx, he said that generally speaking, compounding pharmacies are allowed to make drugs only to fill individual patient prescriptions, versus making batches in advance and then marketing their availability.
According to Silber and his marketing agent, Dale Matteson, Vegas Mixx was initially produced in quantities large enough to provide samples to urologists, family doctors and medical spas.
A compounding pharmacy should not be making samples, Pinson said.
“If you make batches, that’s manufacturing and you have to be licensed by the FDA to do that,” Pinson said. “A compounding pharmacy can only compound prescriptions that are patient-specific. Making samples is not patient-specific. You can’t make up batches of a drug and give them to doctors to do what they want. That’s manufacturing.”
Licensed in 25 states
Illegal or not, the rise and fall of Vegas Mixx provides insight into the fringes of the business of medicine in Las Vegas.
Silber and Matteson were interviewed for this story in Silber’s corner office at Green Valley Drugs, in a business park in the Whitney Ranch development in Henderson. The company’s lobby is adorned with framed thank-you notes for Silber, who supports Little League teams and is chairman of the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation. The company, which is also known as Green Valley Med, is licensed in 25 states and brings in millions of dollars monthly as a compounding pharmacy and medical supplier, Silber said.
Vegas Mixx was never going to become the company’s primary product, Silber said, but the men thought they had found a product that would be successful. In December 2006, Silber hired a researcher who concluded that between one-third and two-thirds of men suffer from premature ejaculation. “The market is huge! The market is wide open!” proclaims a presentation by the researcher.
The combination of Diazepam and Sildenafil, better known by the brand names Valium and Viagra, solved the problem, Silber said. The anti-anxiety drug Valium relaxed the mind, allowing a man who suffered from premature ejaculation to perform without worries. The Viagra relaxed the muscle that causes ejaculation and prolonged the erection.
The Vegas Mixx Web site – aimed at guys who come to Vegas for a fling – used crude terms: “Vegas Mixx ... makes you rock hard, and keeps you that way. Enjoy the ride.”
Silber and Matteson don’t apologize for their style of marketing. They say they were going after a young demographic of men who like to party.
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