Female Viagra
By: Ray Doughty
Updated: June 21, 2010
Women may have to wait a little longer for a little "pink" pill to rival men's little "blue" pill.
An FDA advisory panel voted Firday not to recommend approval of a new drug that may boost sexual desire in women...a drugs some are referring to as a "female Viagra".
Cathy Rowly thought her early 40s would be the prime of her life.
Having the kids out of the house finally meant more time alone with her husband.
Unfortunately her plans for intimacy didn't work out as she'd hoped.
"If you could imagine lighting a wet match, where you had a spark and it went out that's the way my desires were," she says.
Left without any treatment options she she turned to a clinical trial of a drug called Flibanserin.
The drug targets chemicals in the brain that regulate mood and sexual desire.
Dr. John Thorp at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill led the study and found women responded well.
"They reported increases in desire and increases in the number of satisfying sexual encounters per month," he says.
Still, an FDA report found the drug's effects were "not particularly compelling."
It also raised concerns about side effects including depression, fainting and dizziness.
FDA officials asked a panel of experts to review the evidence.
Experts say it's unlikely one pill will cure all the problems linked to female sexual dysfunction, but Cathy says it worked for her.
"I was romantic, I had the energy and the follow through with it," she says.
And she finally had the intimate relationship she had hoped for.
Most of the women in the study were healthy and not taking other medications, so how Flibanserin interacts with other drugs isn't known.
The FDA typically follows the advice of the panel, but they are not required to do so.
If approved the drug could be on the market by the end of this year.
