That Cool New Female Viagra Is a Bust

Women aren't beating down their doctors' doors so they can have more sex.

Shutterstock.com

Shutterstock.com

In the November issue of Philly Mag, I expressed some doubt as to whether American women would flock to a new pill, known as “the female Viagra,” intended to increase their longing to have sex. The drug, flibanserin, known commercially as Addyi, was developed by a German drug firm and acquired by a small North Carolina drug company that in turn was bought by Canadian pharma giant Valeant for a billion dollars in cash a day after the FDA approved its use by women suffering from low libido. That FDA approval came in the wake of a studied PR campaign by the North Carolina company, Sprout, that involved charging the FDA with sexism and busing dozens of women to FDA hearings where they offered tearful testimony about the havoc not wanting to have sex was wreaking on their lives. According to Sprout, more than 40 percent of all women are experiencing sexual dysfunction. When the approval was granted, Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League, claimed an epic victory: “I think this is a huge moment for women’s sexual health, in the way that the Pill was for women’s sexual health and ability to control their own destiny.”

Well, Addyi went on sale on October 17th, and the rush of women to embrace it hasn’t exactly been dizzying.

Bloomberg Business reports that in the first few weeks of sales, Valeant’s billion-dollar baby has racked up … exactly 227 prescriptions. That’s in contrast to initial sales in 1998 of Viagra; half a million men got prescriptions for the erectile-dysfunction drug in its first weeks. “I thought there was going to be this huge onslaught,” the director of the Women’s Health Clinic at the Mayo Clinic told Bloomberg. Instead? “There have been a few casual inquiries, but no prescriptions yet.”

So, what’s the problem? Well, there are the potentially deadly side effects, due to which Addyi can only be prescribed by specially trained doctors. There’s the prohibition on drinking alcohol while on the drug, since doing so intensifies the risk of such side effects. There’s the cost: Unlike Viagra, which lets men take a pill only when they’re ready for sex, Addyi must be taken daily. That means that while a single pill costs only as much as a single Viagra tablet, you have to take 30 of them per month, which adds up to $780 or so. All that for a pill that in trials resulted in one more “sexually satisfying experience” per month for just 10 percent more participants than a placebo did.

There’s also the raft of trouble Valeant has found itself in lately. The company has come under fire for its involvement with “shell pharmacies,” including Pennsylvania-based Philidor, and in recent weeks has seen tumbling stock prices, a request by a U.S. House committee to speak with CEO Michael Pearson about the company’s business practices, and rejection of its drugs by industry giant CVS.

It may also be that despite Sprout’s teary FDA testifiers and a relentless culture of sexification, women just don’t care very much about how much sex they’re having or not having. All but 227 of them, anyway.