Drug Makers See Lucrative Market In Aiding Women's Sex Woes
By Cecilia M. Kang
03/15/99
Dow Jones News Service
PALO ALTO, Calif. (Dow Jones)--Drug makers have one thing on their minds these days: sex.
After the blowout success of treatments for male sexual dysfunctions, the creators of hugely popular Viagra and other pharmaceuticals are turning their attention to women.
And new evidence suggesting that more women than men have trouble in the bedroom has drug makers hoping to tap into what may be the pharmaceutical industry's next big hit.
"If women know there is a safe and effective treatment to improve their private lives with their partners, they would go to doctors in droves," said Irwin Goldstein, professor of Urology at Boston University School of Medicine.
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 even slower, said Goldstein.
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.
Put plainly, male disorders are conspicuous. Though men suffer from premature ejaculation and inability to reach orgasm, by far the largest problem is failure to achieve erection.
Women's problems, however, are more varied and harder to determine. They 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 Goldstein and 18 urologists in what may be the first consensus classification on women's dysfunctions.
Is Viagra A Magic Bullet For Women, Too?
But working on the premise that women and men basically get aroused in the same way and are sexually hindered by the same things - old age, fatty foods, smoking and alcohol - drug companies are coming up with products based on their existing treatments for men, but dressed to suit female needs.
Hoping its much-ballyhooed Viagra will work the same physical and financial wonders on women, Pfizer Inc. (PFE) is in the second phase of testing the anti-impotence pill on women and expects results from those tests later this year.
Viagra, which has become for sexual treatments what Kleenex is for tissues and Q-tips are for cotton swabs, overwhelmingly dominates what some estimate as a $1 billion male market.
The drug, which increases blood flow to the genitalia, posted $788 million in sales during its first nine months despite reports of harmful side effects and even deaths. The Viagra label now includes information on reports of heart attacks, sudden cardiac deaths and hypertension in patients taking it since its approval last April. The FDA said no definite causal relationship has been established between these reports and the drug.
And the company that created Prozac is also hoping to get in the business of sexual healing. Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) and ICOS Corp. (ICOS) 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.
Though it'll be tough for smaller pharmaceutical companies to compete against the big guns, analysts said, several smaller drug companies are forging ahead with their own remedies.
Troubled Mountain View, Calif., startup Vivus Inc. (VVUS) temporarily revived its hammered stock last week 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 clitoris and genitalia 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 apomorphine - the agent in its male treatment licensed to TAP, a joint venture of Abbott Laboratories (ABT) and Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. of Japan. The female patent hasn't be licensed yet, the company said.
The female version of apomorphine, which begins Phase II human trials in the second quarter through the remainder of the year, works through the central nervous system and is said by the Buffalo Grove, Ill., company to work faster than Viagra to accelerate blood movement to genitalia.
Woodlands, Texas-based Zonagen Inc. (ZONA), meanwhile, is in Phase I human testing of a female version of its male anti-impotence drug Vasomax, which also enhances the flow of blood to genitals. The company is currently 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 that are held down by compounds, meant to increase female sexual desire, lubrication and intensify orgasm.
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.
Drug Makers Spy Pot Of Gold At Rainbow's End
Despite all the work being done, the first sexual dysfunction treatment for women probably won't be available until around 2002.
But it'll be well worth the wait for drug companies.
"There are a host of reasons why the market for women can be larger than the male market; on (physiological) findings and because women as a gender are more receptive to intervention and seeing doctors," said 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.
"You almost have to drag men to the doctor whereas women see physicians on a regular basis," he said.
Sergio Traversa, an health-care equity analyst at Mehta Partners in New York, said contrary to the belief that women are perhaps more complacent about their sex lives than men, women may be more accepting of treatment for disorders as they are more open than men about discussing their sexuality.
And Vivus Chief Executive Wilson said he observed that women were largely behind men's purchases of erectile dysfunction treatment Muse.
"Women are fundamental to the treatment of men because it's a couples' disease," said Wilson. "They see their male partners withdrawing and getting cranky and get them to get their problems fixed."
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, he said.
And much research still needs to be done on that topic as women's troubles may stem from a variety of factors including psychological and social associations as well as physical ones, experts said.
"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," said Goldstein.
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