Teva Joins Bizarre Drug-Based Game Trend

(MoneyWatch)  In what is turning out to be an increasingly strange fad among drug companies, Teva, the generics giant, has produced an online game titled "Biologicsland." Some have noted it looks a lot like Candyland.

Regular BNET readers will remember that Sanofi-Aventis, Pfizer and Novo Nordisk have all waded into the online and video game sphere, with what I will diplomatically describe as varying degrees of success. (Continues below game image.)

So how does Teva's Biologicsland compare? Users choose to play as a scientist, lobbyist, professor, politician or doctor. They then proceed around the board answering multiple choice questions for points. The questions are hardly riveting:

In 2006, the federal government spent how much to purchase biologics medicines?

I'll give you a freebie: The answer is $40 billion. Get the question wrong, however, and a cloud of cell-like monsters with teeth invade the screen, followed by a trippy Twilight Zone-style death spiral, before the player is invited to find out the correct answer.

I played as a lobbyist and, by the end of the game, realized I was being not-so-subtly pitched on the idea of creating a legal generic pathway for biologics. Not surprising, given that Teva cannot current sell generic biologics but obviously wants to.

Even though there are only eight questions, you'll be dying of boredom by the end of it.