New pill a Viagra for women?
November 17, 2009
Lesley Ciarula Taylor
STAFF REPORTER
A new drug that failed clinical trials as an antidepressant has had the unexpected side effect of heightening sexual arousal in women, according to a leading Canadian researcher in women's health.
The drug flibanserin "may help restore a balance" in factors that provoke a "healthy sexual response," said Dr. Elaine Jolly, medical director of the Shirley E. Greenberg Women's Health Centre of the Ottawa Hospital.
Initially developed as an antidepressant, it failed in clinical trials, reported medical website MedPage Today, which is sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania.
The new findings, from what Jolly called "pivotal" trials of women in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, have already set off controversy because the trials were paid for by Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of flibanserin, and treat a condition sometimes regarded as one being manufactured by the drug industry.
Jolly explained that the 1,946 women in the latest trials were recruited because they had earlier tested flibanserin and wanted to continue with the research into the side effect for what she termed Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder.
"Reportedly, trial participants were reluctant to return unused pills when the study was over," said John Gever at MedPage Today. MedPage lists researchers' affiliations with drug companies along with their reports on research.
Co-researcher John Thorp of the University of North Carolina, who, like Jolly, was only funded by Boehringer for this study, has called it "essentially a Viagra-like drug for women in that diminished desire is the most common feminine sexual problem."
Their research, presented at the European Society for Sexual Medicine in Lyons, France, this week, reported that women found a "statistically significant increase" in satisfying sex each month when they were taking flibanserin over a placebo during the 24-week study.
Thorp warned the drug wasn't an "immediate-acting aphrodisiac." He dismissed concerns about medicalizing female sexual behaviour by explaining that the condition caused genuine distress in some women.
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