Government Healthcare Policy, Business and Technology

FDA Questions Risks of Drug to Boost Women’s Libido

The Wall Street Journal (online registration required): Federal regulators evaluating a drug sometimes called “Viagra for women” are focusing on questions such as whether a small improvement in a woman’s sex life is enough to outweigh safety worries surrounding the medicine.

In reviewing the application by Sprout Pharmaceuticals Inc. for its drug flibanserin, the Food and Drug Administration is considering, among other things, whether an increase of 2.5 in the number of “sexually satisfying events” experienced a month is sufficient to truly help women who say they suffer from a low sex drive. That increase, found in one flibanserin study, compared with a rise of about 1.5 such events monthly among women getting only a placebo.

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