The pharmaceutical firm Vivus has announced that their chief executive officer Leland Wilson will present an overview of the company next week, where they are expected to give an update on a variety of new treatments, including a product to combat hypoactive sexual desire disorder in women. They have already said they are currently looking for a partner with whom they can go forward with clinical trials into their treatment for female sexual dysfunction, Luramist.
The product is a hand-held spray which delivers testosterone and proprietary skin penetration enhancers directly to the skin of women suffering from hypoactive sexual desire disorder. They believe that for pre-menopausal women, the delivery of testosterone to their system will increase the number of satisfying sexual experiences the women have a month.
The product is one of a few being developed to improve female sexual desire, with perhaps the most famous being flibaneserin, nick-named ‘female viagra’. Originally developed as an anti-depressant, pharmaceutical firm Boeringer Ingelheim discovered that while it did not affect mood, it did increase sexual desire in women who had been diagnosed as suffering from HSDD.
Currently undergoing clinical trials, there is significant interest in the pill, as it uses a different mechanism to promote desire from the majority of treatments being developed. Most medications for HSDD in the pipeline use testosterone as the key ingredient in their treatment, such as Lumamist and BioSante’s Libigel.
At the moment, the only treatment for HSDD is Intrinsa, a patch only suitable for post-menopausal women. As the new treatments are largely aimed at pre-menopausal women, the companies involved are hopeful that they will be able to garner significant sales from this large section of the population who currently have no medical recourse to combat the condition.