Digger, the repulsive cartoon character at left, has symbolized many things to many people. Today, Wal-Mart may have put the final nail in his coffin by adding the expensive drug he pitched to its list of $4 generics.
Digger sold Lamisil, Novartis’s pill for fungal toenail and fingernail infections. For Novartis, he represented the nastiness of a fungal infection under your nail. For the FDA, he showed that drug companies sometimes go too far in their ads. And some health plan officials saw the Digger ads and other Lamisil pitches as revealing the problem with direct-to-consumer drug advertising: They believed he drove consumers to ask their doctor for a pill they really didn’t need. And the treatment was expensive — more than $300 a month.
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