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Vivus

pharmaceutical Company

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 26, 2025
Entity authorityQ7937957
Source-derived summary

Vivus (OTC Pink: VVUSQ) is a small pharmaceutical company headquartered in Campbell, California that specializes in obesity, sleep, and sexual health. Vivus developed Avanafil, an erectile dysfunction drug that has completed Phase 3 clinical trials. The drug has been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration, and is sold under the trademark name Stendra. Stendra is the first and only oral erectile dysfunction treatment approved to be taken approximately 15 minutes before sexual activity.

Overview

The 2009 documentary film "Orgasm Inc." was made at Vivus to document the process of creating a treatment for female sexual arousal disorder (FSD).

Vivus also developed an obesity drug, Qnexa (now called Qsymia), a combination of phentermine and topiramate, two existing weight-loss drugs. On July 17, 2012, the Food and Drug Administration approved Qsymia (phentermine and topiramate extended-release) as an addition to a reduced-calorie diet and exercise for chronic weight management. The drug was approved for use in adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater (obese) or adults with a BMI of 27 or greater (overweight) who have at least one weight-related condition such as high blood pressure (hypertension), type 2 diabetes, or high cholesterol (dyslipidemia).

In 2016, the company was ranked #23 on the Deloitte Fast 500 North America list.

In 2020, the company filed for bankruptcy protection.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Vivus” as pharmaceutical Company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Vivus, pharmaceutical and Company.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009, 2012, 2016, 2020—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1991. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Vivus, pharmaceutical and Company providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Vivus”, the useful work is to connect “pharmaceutical Company” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7937957. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2020.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Vivus”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Vivus primary sources, Vivus archive and Vivus research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Vivus”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Vivus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.