While Trulicity sales momentum continued in the quarter, sales of other newer medicines, including diabetes treatments Basaglar and Jardiance and the cancer drug Cyramza, all fell short of Wall Street expectations. Sales increased 8 percent to $568 million for impotence treatment Cialis and were up 15 percent at $706 million for Humalog insulin. Excluding special items such as charges of $95 million from research collaborations, Lilly earned 66 cents per share. Lead researcher Dr Ronald Victor, at the Cedars-Sinai Institute, told the BBC the research was a "bridge" from the study in mice into a larger, 48-week human study to try out the treatment in 300 boys across the world. Jefferies analyst Jeffrey Holford said earnings were held back by higher-than-expected research and development costs and sales, general and administrative expenses, but he found no major surprises in the report. A study published back in 1999 in the British Medical Journal reported finding that it was possible to prolong the life of cut flowers by dissolving a Viagra tablet in water.

Prof Steve Winder, at the University of Sheffield, said the study was a "proof of principle" which "might have a small beneficial effect". Many patients with the condition have to use a wheelchair by the age of 10, and there is currently no effective treatment. He said there "may be some embarrassment" with the usual effect of Viagra and Cialis but that he hoped a correct dose would be found in the larger trial. They were given a single dose of either sildenafil, commonly known as Viagra, or tadalafil, known as Cialis, which is also used to treat erectile dysfunction. Researchers say that a "dose relationship"-i.e., the more drugs taken the higher the risk-would usually be expected if the drugs were a direct cause of the cancer. Chinese copycats won bids for most of the 33 drugs, including generic versions for drugs ranging from Johnson & Johnson's prostate cancer treatment Zytiga to Eli Lilly's erectile dysfunction treatment Cialis, the results showed. Cialis is a pill form for treating erectile dysfunction.

Viagra and Cialis, normally used for treating male impotence, could be used to fight a muscle-wasting disorder which affects boys, say US scientists. In this study, scientists at the Cedars-Sinai Institute in Los Angeles tested the effect of at the new treatment in a study of 10 boys with DMD aged between eight and 13 who had blood flow problems. Experts said the study could be beneficial but would not necessarily improve the boys' ability to walk. In tests the drugs helped improve blood flow to the muscles of boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). After treatment with both of the drugs, blood flow in the boys' muscles was restored to a healthy level, the study said. It can become fatal when it affects the muscles needed to breathe and pump blood around the body. Erectile dysfunction affects around one-in-five men in Australia. Morphine, like many narcotics, affects libido and erectile function or quality. Loeb, whose latest study was prompted by a highly cited 2014 analysis in 14 men who had taken Viagra and were later diagnosed with melanoma. Researchers who led the analysis say that while there was a greater statistical risk of developing malignant melanoma among erectile dysfunction drug users (an overall increased risk of 21 percent for having filled a single prescription), a closer look at the numbers revealed no increased risk among those men with the most prescriptions.