Variation in Drugs and Women: Standardization as a Tool for Scientific Marketing of Oral Contraceptives in France and West Germany (1961–2006)

First introduced in the USA in 1960, oral contraception was not ordinary medication as it focused on preventing pregnancy, a condition that was not regarded as a disease. This is why Lara Marks calls it one of the first ‘designer’ or ‘lifestyle’ drugs. ¹ Women and doctors accepted the pill faster than its manufacturers expected them to, and it soon came into wide commercial success. Two years after the company Searle launched the first pill, Enovid, on the US market it had increased its sales by 27 per cent, reaching a record high. Within ten years after its introduction, several international firms from countries such as the USA, France, Germany and the Netherlands were producing oral contraceptives.