Boosting a Woman's Sex Drive--The German Drug

Researchers at German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim have stumbled upon a drug that may be another sex drive booster that works in women. The scientists were looking for a new fast acting anti-depressant, but incidentally discovered that the drug--flibanserin--generated a surge of sexual desire in many women subjects.

Like all companies working on antidepressants, Boehringer surveyed patients in its clinical trial to assess dampening of libido, a well-established side effect. Far from complaining about a drop in sexual desire and arousal, many of the women in the trial reported a surge.

The men had no such response—and neither group showed any improvement in mood. "It is an interesting drug," says Dr. André T. Guay, director of the Center for Sexual Function at the Lahey Clinic Northshore, Peabody, Mass., and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. "These things come about in strange ways."

...."This is not something that can be taken on a Friday for the weekend," says Boehringer Ingelheim spokesman Mark R. Vincent. "There is a gradual increase in sexual desire over a six- to eight-week period."

Pinning down the mechanism is especially critical, in this case, because the FDA views drugs that affect the complicated central nervous system with extra caution.

Source.

The other drug currently in the pipeline with the ability to boost a woman's (and men's) libido, is Bremelanotide.

Some are calling the new female libido boosters "viagra for women", but that only demonstrates their ignorance of both how Viagra works and what it actually does for men--which has little to do with sex drive, and everything to do with the mechanics of joinery.

While women might look forward to flibanserin working its slow way through the drug approval process, men will need to focus their sights on Bremelanotide.

Hat tip Pharmagossip.