Viagra meets its match: Sex pills for the female libido are on their way
Filed under: Company News, Healthcare, Pfizer
The pharmaceutical industry has discovered the female libido. German biotech company Boehringer Ingelheim is "putting the finishing touches on a pill designed to reawaken desire by blunting female inhibitions," according to Bloomberg News, which scientists will discuss next week in Lyon, France.The drug has nothing to do with George Clooney, or getting male spouses to help more around the house. Turns out women's sex drives are centered in the brain. Who knew? (Not most guys, probably.)
Viagra for Women?
The Boehringer pill could do for women what Pfizer's (PFE) Viagra did for men. U.S. sales for pills boosting the female libido could top the $2 billion spent on erectile dysfunction treatments, Bloomberg estimates, because women report more sexual problems than men.
Decreased sexual desire is a serious problem for women. A Boehringer survey of 31,000 U.S. women 18 and over found that one in 10 expressed distress over diminished sex drive.
Is that a medical problem? The answer isn't so clear-cut. A man's erection is a physical response that can be treated with medicine, but a woman's sexual dissatisfaction is a complex psychological issue. (Pfizer abandoned efforts years ago to create a Viagra for women.) And as Boehringer's scientists note, there's no definitive answer of what constitutes a normal sex drive. A lack of sexual desire is often tied to a woman's relationship with her partner.
A Marketing Challenge
Still, Boehringer may be onto something. Pfizer's marketing playbook for Viagra includes always avoiding the word "impotence"; "erectile dysfunction" has a nicer ring to it, no? Similarly, Boehringer avoids "frigidity" and refers to "hypoactive sexual desire disorder," or HSDD, according to Bloomberg.
Media companies are no doubt as excited about the research as Boehringer. The creative juices on Madison Avenue must be flowing. I have visions of Boehringer ads blanketing shows aimed at women -- soap operas, Oprah, Lifetime movies. Somewhere in Hollywood today, there's surely a hack banging out a comic screenplay about a goofy guy who spikes the cocktails of his bored dates.
Unfortunately, Big Pharma hasn't come up with a drug that solves people's personal problems for them. Now, there's a drug that would be a best-seller.



























Reader Comments (Page 1 of 8)
11-13-2009 @ 1:47PM
KDB said...
A drug that makes women uninhibited?
Isin't that called booze?
Besides, I can think of a thousand ways to abuse/exploit this that are very uncool.
Reply
11-14-2009 @ 10:50PM
banditosfriend said...
Once I woke up covered in Viagra with dirty old movies playing in my panties. I blamed my gay neighbors. They make me sick!! Who would do such a thing. You are SOOOooooo right about doing bad things to women. I am a woman and bad things are just plain scary! I know firsthand how pills can be used to manipulate make women do dirty dirty things. SO dirty. I am feeling dirty right now, I think that is how powerful the pills are, you don't even take them and you are ready to explode. But then you realize you didn't take the pill and it was in fact Carl that forced you to do dirty naughty things. SCARY. Kudos for a great comment! A very enthusiastic two thumbs up.
11-14-2009 @ 10:55PM
bettysparrow said...
where in the crap did my reply to your awesome comment go? Man I feel like such a fool. Idiot! I really had some amazing things to say about the amazing things that you wrote. Things that would BLOW your mind. Ha haha. Well enough of that jibber jabber. Let me introduce myself. My name is BRIAN. You can call me the Bri man if you prefer. I am great at a lot of things, but mostly blogging! Hell ya! Well I really hope you see what I wrote, because It is DA SHIZIT!!
11-15-2009 @ 6:56PM
junior said...
So now add this pill to the date rape drug and here's how it goes in court. "but your honor she was begging me for it, at least she was before she passed out."
11-13-2009 @ 2:13PM
Ron Chee said...
Soap operas will change radically once that product hits the stands. The women on them will become radical sex fiends! Advertisers will he barely able to afford the air time!
Or so men wish!
All silliness aside it will take more than pills to get the genders closer and more in tune with each others needs.
Good luck and send me a free sample for my lady ... she's hot and hotter would be vunderbar! Nah, I wouldn't do that to her ...
Reply
11-13-2009 @ 8:24PM
john said...
How about a drug that inhibits shopping? That's what I want to know!!!!!
Reply
11-14-2009 @ 12:55PM
O640 said...
Women need a increase in their libido like Jews need more Arabs! Isn't 7 Billion enough?
11-13-2009 @ 11:32PM
Tiki said...
There is no drug out there that is not going to make me pissed off at my husband when he acts like a jerk and make me want to have sex with him. Only a bunch of stupid males would even try to come up with a pill to solve that problem. Complete idiots!
Reply
11-14-2009 @ 1:28AM
Mack said...
Well Tiki, those 'complete idiots' are doctor/scientists. I highly doubt you attended medical school.
11-14-2009 @ 12:10PM
beachplus4 said...
Why do you have to limit yourself to your husband???
11-14-2009 @ 6:08PM
gary knight said...
i agree, stupid men.... women are hot enough IF they want to be.. multiple orgaisums/etc...
11-15-2009 @ 12:31AM
jamie said...
You should'nt bash something you don't know the whole story behind. There are alot more women out there than you can possibly imagine that have problems that need addressing when it comes to enjoyable sexual activity . Its not a pill that makes you happy with your husband. It helps in situations when a women simply can not reach orgasm. Mostly due to age, diet, pregnancies, and most commonly medications. Check almost any medications side effects. Sexual side effects are one of the most common, and that side effect is lack of desire and unable to reach orgasm. This is very serious, I am a very happiley married 32 yr old women with one child. I for one am excited to see if this will help me get back what i used to have. I have many friends that agree. So please read things through before you say the wrong thing to the wrong person who maybe a friend you affend
11-15-2009 @ 3:27PM
Andi said...
Maybe if it can make him do the dishes first....otherwise, fuggedaboutit.
11-15-2009 @ 7:11PM
Abigail said...
It's simple: A man must tend to his wife's emotional needs in order for her to feel the hornies for him, which causes her to tend to his sexual needs, and a woman must tend to her husband's sexual needs in order for him to be able to draw closer to her and then be able to tend to her emotional needs.
The spiral goes up and up and up.
The problem today, however, is that many men are quite self-centered, childish, and do not want to have to carry their wives' emotional loads. Men also have very easy access to porn today, which causes them to be even more self-centered.
The reason that porn causes self-centeredness is that oxytocin, the bonding hormone, is released when a man climaxes. If he's climaxing to porn, then he's bonding with himself and with unreal and unrealistic sex partners....ones that require him to do nothing to woo them, other than log onto his computer.
If she is not getting her emotional needs met, then she has no libido. It's not a pill that she needs for her libido...it's a husband who will continue to woo her and love her, just like when they were dating.
Add this stick of dynamite to the pile: When a wife is not getting her emotional needs met, then today, as the social and moral sexual barriers have eroded, she will partake in a live affair to a much greater extent than in past generations.
This is a spiral apart, apart, apart.
Who needs to break the stalemate and go first? This will sound archaically chauvanistic, but the man needs to go first and pursue his woman. When he pursues her, she feels loved, and then she returns that love with hornies for him. In the process of having to tend to his wife's needs, he will grow up some and will be less self-centered. When a woman is married to a man who she perceives as an admirable grown up, then she has even more hornies for him.
Back to the spiral up and up and up.
Men reading: I bet most of you are thinking, "Bull...I try, but my wife won't respond." Well, she will respond....after some lag time of you proving to her that you actually are trying to love her....the way that she needs to be loved first.....not just so that you can get sex from her.
It has to be from a place of other-centeredness, not self-centeredness.
Simple. Hard to start doing, when a self-cenetered man has not had to for a long time, but well worth it in the long run.....especially if there are children.
11-13-2009 @ 11:38PM
brac00 said...
Tiki how about a new credit card,shopping spree..........
Reply
11-14-2009 @ 5:37AM
Barbara said...
One poster is correct. No pill will get a woman to have sex with a jerk if she is mad at him. I am a woman. Have never had to have anything to get me to want to have sex. I can satisfy my self on my own heel better than any man can. LOL
Reply
11-14-2009 @ 7:03AM
Todo said...
I feel sorry for you, I make sure I please my woman and it blows her mind how well I can with my tricks. And Tiki your an idiot, yes there are times that we do stupid things but the pill isn't for those times. My women has been getting frustrated because she hasn't felt the need for sex, and yes that sux on my part, but she's going through a lot of stressful things, so its completely understandable. The pill is for those times
11-14-2009 @ 10:01AM
07 Shelby said...
spoken like a true lesbo!
11-14-2009 @ 10:41AM
mjr91 said...
Hey Shelby --
So every woman's a "lesbo" who knows that plenty of men SUCK in the sack
I love sex, but show me a guy who can't perform the way I like, and I'll take a vibrator instead any time.
Remember the song? "Girls just want to have fun." If a vibe's more fun, it's not HER problem...
11-14-2009 @ 10:51AM
Greg said...
YOU have never had a good lover than. Get you a real man!!!