Battle to get female Viagra to market — and how…

You’ve heard of the little blue capsule. Now, a new documentary is popping the highlight on the pink one.

Men have had pharmaceutical choices for erectile dysfunction for a long time — Viagra and Cialis are just a few.

But a female libido capsule has been more elusive. Enter Addyi.

Addyi has undergone a few makeovers before hitting pharmacy cabinets. It was once an antidepressant before evolving into drugs to tackle low intercourse drive. Courtesy of Paramount

While medication like Viagra work by growing blood movement to the genitals, the daily pink capsule focuses on brain-based approaches to deal with hypoactive inappropriate need disorder.

HSDD is characterised by low or no intercourse drive for at least six months. Even as the condition impacts about 10% of ladies, Addyi endured a troublesome six-year journey to securing approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

“The Pink Pill: intimacy, substances & Who Has Control” — premiering Friday on Paramount+ — explores the obstacles that Addyi overcame, thanks to a persistent advertising marketing campaign that highlighted gender bias in drug approvals.

What is Addyi?

The German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim initially developed the capsule as an antidepressant. It wasn’t discovered to be efficient in medical trials, so it was repurposed to tackle HSDD.

Known clinically as flibanserin, the drugs is designed to help stability neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine to increase inappropriate need.

It failed to win FDA approval in 2010 because it wasn’t shown to considerably increase daily inappropriate need.

Sprout Pharmaceuticals co-founder Cindy Eckert spearheaded the profitable marketing campaign to get Addyi accepted by the Food and Drug Administration. Courtesy of Paramount

The company also expressed concern about potential unintended effects like dizziness, fainting and unintended injury and the drug interacting with alcohol and other drugs.

Following the FDA rejection, Boehringer Ingelheim offered the flibanserin rights to Sprout Pharmaceuticals.

Sprout co-founder Cindy Eckert took the reins and named the capsule for Kate Walsh’s “Grey’s Anatomy” character, Addison Montgomery.

“I liked that she lives life on her own terms, so we called it Addyi,” Eckert said in the documentary.

How did it finally win FDA approval?

The identify change — and the extra research and info Sprout submitted — didn’t change the FDA’s thoughts about the potential dangers of Addyi. The company denied approval again in 2013.

Sprout then took a different tact with its “female Viagra.” The company launched the “Even the Score” PR marketing campaign that proclaimed that it was sexist to have many medication for male inappropriate dysfunction but none for ladies.

The rallying cry was: “Women have waited long enough.” The initiative even went so far as to parody Viagra adverts. The blitz labored — to a degree.

This little pink capsule has been the subject of a prolonged battle about the best means to deal with inappropriate need issues. AP

In 2015, the FDA accepted Addyi to deal with HSDD in premenopausal ladies. But it was given a “black box” warning — the very best security warning — due to the dangers of low blood pressure and fainting when blended with alcohol.

Prescribers and pharmacists had to bear particular training to educate sufferers on the dangers of combining Addyi with alcohol.

Following the FDA approval, Valeant Pharmaceuticals acquired Sprout for roughly $1 billion.

The hopes had been high, but Addyi gross sales fell far short of expectations thanks to a vital price hike and mismanaged advertising. Sprout was finally returned to its authentic shareholders.

Eckert continued her push — and FDA approval was expanded in December 2025 to embody postmenopausal ladies under 65.

The growth got here even after the FDA despatched a warning letter to Eckert last 12 months about a social media post that “created a misleading impression regarding the safety and effectiveness of Addyi.”

What are the highlights of the documentary?

Directed by Canadian filmmaker Aisling Chin-Yee, “The Pink Pill” gained the Audience Award at the DOC NYC movie competition in November.

The most compelling elements of the 88-minute documentary are the ladies who emotionally shared their struggles with HSDD, including a breast cancer survivor who underwent surgical menopause and a lady who confronted divorce because of her low intercourse drive.

Not everybody was swayed. “Hecklers” had been shown dismissing these considerations and suggesting a number of methods to increase low libido without drugs — like switching boyfriends, eating chocolate, ingesting espresso, watching sure episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy,” studying erotica and getting a new vibrator.

“That’s all saying, ‘You’re doing something wrong, and it’s your fault,’” Eckert said in the doc. “That was hard to watch.”

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