Boehringer Ingelheim Abandons Flibanserin and 'Pink Viagra'

via Flickr’s Dana GravesGerman drug maker Boehringer Ingelheim announced on Friday that it had stopped work on a pill for low libido in women, or a ‘female Viagra’ drug as it’s commonly called. Our involved writing about this drug takes a middle-of-the road analysis to the research results.

We don’t embrace Leonore Tiefer’s unyielding stance on the pursuit of a female version of Viagra: “The discontinuation of clinical research on flibanserin represents a victory for the F.D.A. and the public, and the latest travesty in the decade-long hunt for a so-called ‘pink Viagra’. The agency asked for more data on safety and efficacy and the company responded that they lack the resources for such research. This confirms that Boehringer-Ingelheim was always more invested in marketing than science.” via NYTimes

Boehringer’s Uniquely American Results

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Female Desire Drug Flibanserin Comes Before FDA

Tracking women’s orgasms is a top editorial priority at Anne of Carversville. 

Hopefully, we do a good job of distilling the facts about female sexuality, and that includes the dreams of big pharma to create the equivalent of Viagra for women.

On May 27, 2010 “Orgasm Inc.” has its film debut at New York’s Lincoln Center. Three weeks later, on June 18, the German manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim goes before the FDA, seeking approval for its pill with the unsexy name “flibanserin”, the focus of its flower-inspired research on four groups of women who participated in trials in Fall 2009.

Tank’s Masha Novoselova by Sofia Sanchez & Mauro MongielloSensuality News Embraces Sexual Intimacy

Let us get our own prejudices on the table.

We believe that women — and disproportionately more American women— underrate the health benefits of positive sexuality in their lives. We’re sad that orgasms get such such minor play among intelligent American women, who consistently say that besides an extra hour of sleep, they would rather read a book or watch a movie.

Statistics from a recent survey by the National Sleep Foundation indicate that White women and Asians put a lower priority on sex vs sleep, than Latino and African American women. Don’t shoot us. This is one ‘fact’ we embrace as a good one, and not a stereotypical assessment of Latino and African American propensity for sexual activity. 

Blacks|African Americans and Latinos are 10 times as likely to report having sex every night as Whites and Asians and 2.5 times more likely than Whites.

At AOC, we have hot blood in our veins, too and believe that nothing could be better for women’s health than frequent orgasms, even if she goes solo.

Medicalizing Sexual Desire

The big story around the Boehringer Ingelheim FDA application is the “medicalization” of female sexual desire. There is no new script here, although the research facts are revealing, and we will restate them. American women are understandably aggravated at having their lack of sexual desire put under the microscope, as one more “failing” or imperfection.

Big pharma claims they are only trying to fill a valid medical need expressed by some women to reignite their libidos. Unfortunately, all women will be subjected to the advertising messages, and they are tough to tune out, especially if hubby is in the room.

Even if a woman is positive about her lack of sexual libido, she will be confronted with the medical opportunity of correcting it. Look at the ad campaigns for Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. Every survey says that men desire sex more than women (with the statistical opposite, of course). Women may get a trip to the doctor for Christmas.

The Sexual High Bar

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Can Any Female Desire Drug Make Sexy Orchids From Pure Daisies?

Orchid via Flickr’s Fort Photo

Will big pharma make orchids out of daisies?

The quest for a female equivalent of Viagra has long haunted researchers who can’t convert Viagra’s magic potency to fuel female sexual dysfunction and or a simple disinterest in sex.

Researchers gathering at the European Society for Sexual Medicine meeting next week will hear the impact of flower-themed research on 5,000 women participating in the Bouquet Studies. Dubbed Violet, Daisy, Dahlia and Orchid, the results could form the basis for applications to U.S. and European regulators.

Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH is banking on sex really being all in women’s heads. While serious medical conditions impact women’s sexual desire, response, ability to orgasm and a host of other physiological conditions, much anecdotal and scientific research indicates that the entire topic of female sexuality is very complex and deeply psychological.

Just saying those words can get you in a heap of trouble with many women professionals who are tired of being psychoanalyzed. In 2003, Ray Moynihan called female sexual dysfunction “the freshest, clearest example we have” of a disease created by pharmaceutical companies to make healthy people think they need medicine. via Bloomberg News

The medical parlance around the Bouquet studies is focused on HSDD, or hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

A basic premise of the research — also controversial — is that men aren’t to always blame for a woman’s lack of sexual desire, although they may be and they may contribute to her disinterest.

Sex is a “historical and cultural phenomenon,” said Leonore Tiefer, a psychiatry professor at New York University. There’s no baseline of normalcy by which to define a disorder, she contends.

“It’s like dancing, or music, or piano-playing,” Tiefer said. “You do it with the body, but the part the body plays isn’t the largest part.”

As a non-medical profesional closely involved with female sexuality, and a disciple of Helen Fisher’s work on hormones, the brain and sexual desire, and a student of religious and cultural admonitions about women’s sexual behavior, I believe strongly in the suppression of desire theories.

Simply stated, “good girls” girls don’t do “bad things” without a lot of psychological ambivalence about how they will be judged.

Image via Flickr’s tschopper (Tom Schopper Photography)

One in 10 women of 31,000 surveyed by Boehringer at the start of the studies expressed distress about dimished sex drive. The results are best evaluated within a group of women who believe they have the medical condition under study.

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