Drug Firms Turn to Women's Sexual Dysfunction
By Cecilia M. Kang
03/17/99
The Wall Street Journal
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- After the success of treatments for male-sexual dysfunctions, pharmaceutical companies are turning their attention to women.
According to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 43% of 1,749 women sampled said they suffered sexual problems, compared with 31% of 1,410 men surveyed.
For the same reasons men's sexual dysfunctions have only recently been addressed -- social taboos, limited government funding and closeted demand for treatment -- research and drugs for women have moved slowly. Advances in female treatments have also lagged because women's dysfunctions are largely more complex than men's troubles, medical experts and drug companies said.
Women's problems range from lack of sexual desire, trouble attaining orgasm, vaginal dryness and pain associated with intercourse, according to a soon-to-be-published report by Irwin Goldstein, professor of urology at Boston University School of Medicine. Together with 18 other urologists, he has prepared what might be the first consensus classification on women's dysfunctions.
Working on the premise that women and men get aroused in basically the same way and are sexually hindered by the same things -- aging, fatty foods, smoking and alcohol -- drug companies are coming up with products based on existing treatments for men, but dressed to suit female needs. Hoping its much-ballyhooed Viagra will work the same physical and financial wonders, Pfizer Inc. is in the second phase of testing the impotence treatment on women and expects results from those tests later this year.
Viagra overwhelmingly dominates what some estimate as a $1 billion male market. The drug, which increases blood flow to the genitals, posted $788 million in sales during its first nine months despite reports of potential side effects.
And the company that created Prozac is also hoping to get in the business of sexual healing. Eli Lilly & Co. and Icos Corp. are in Phase II trials of an oral treatment using phophodiesterase type-5 inhibitors. Eli Lilly said it will enter its next phase of trials this year.
Several smaller drug companies also are forging ahead with remedies. Vivus Inc., a Mountain View, Calif., start-up, temporarily revived its depressed stock earlier this month with a patent for topical treatments using alprostadil, the same agent in its male-erectile drug Muse. Vivus said its female product will likely be a cream applied to the genitals to enhance blood flow as it does in Muse.
Pentech Pharmaceuticals Inc. also holds a patent for a blood-flow enhancement pill for females using apomorphinethe agent in its male treatment licensed to TAP, a joint venture of Abbott Laboratories and Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. of Japan. The patent for the female version hasn't be licensed yet, the company said. The female version of apomorphine, which begins Phase II human trials in the second quarter, works through the central nervous system, and the Buffalo Grove, Ill., company says it works faster than Viagra to accelerate blood movement to the genitals.
Zonagen Inc., The Woodlands, Texas, is in Phase I human testing of a female version of its male impotence drug Vasomax, which also enhances the flow of blood to genitals. The company is testing a vaginal suppository version of the treatment and expects to remain in Phase I trials for the remainder of the year.
Hormone treatments are also in the works to perk up women's sexual desire and pleasure. Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc., a unit of Belgium's Solvay SA, is making an oral hormone pill, and TheraTech Inc. is in Phase II clinical trials for a testosterone patch. Both hormone treatments are intended to strengthen sexual desire in menopausal women.
Then there are herbal remedies that aim to increase libido. Erogen Inc. of Marina Del Ray, Calif., said it is directly selling tablets that free existing testosterone in women, meant to increase female sexual desire. A spokeswoman said demand for the herbal medication has been overwhelming, forcing the company to hire answering services to handle what she said is a boom in orders. She declined to disclose specific order figures.
But until a definition and guidelines for symptoms and outcomes of sexual dysfunctions in women are widely accepted, the Food and Drug Administration will hold drugs from the public, said Vivus Chief Executive Officer Leland Wilson.
That notion is echoed by Dr. Goldstein, an expert on impotence and one of 19 medical experts working to create a consensus classification system for symptoms and outcomes of female-sexual dysfunctions. "The FDA isn't going to accept that drug company X's drugs cure female sexual disorders until the FDA knows the parameters of sexual dysfunction," he said.
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