{"id":507422,"date":"2026-03-06T14:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T14:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/507422\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T14:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T14:49:08","slug":"battle-to-get-female-viagra-to-market-and-how-greys-anatomy-played-a-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/507422\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle to get ‘female Viagra’ to market \u2014 and how ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ played a role"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve heard of the little blue pill<\/a>. Now, a new documentary is turning the spotlight on the pink one.<\/p>\n

Men have had pharmaceutical options for erectile dysfunction<\/a> for decades \u2014 Viagra<\/a> and Cialis are just a few.<\/p>\n

But a female libido pill has been more elusive. Enter Addyi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Addyi has undergone a few makeovers before hitting pharmacy shelves. It was once an antidepressant before evolving into medicine to address low sex drive. Courtesy of Paramount<\/p>\n

While drugs like Viagra work by increasing blood flow to the genitals, the daily pink pill focuses on brain-based approaches to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

HSDD is characterized by low or no sex drive for at least six months. Even as the condition affects about 10% of women<\/a>, Addyi endured a difficult six-year journey to securing approval from the Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Pink Pill: Sex, Drugs & Who Has Control\u201d<\/a> \u2014 premiering Friday on Paramount+<\/a> \u2014 explores the obstacles that Addyi overcame, thanks to a persistent marketing campaign that highlighted gender bias in drug approvals.<\/p>\n

What is Addyi?<\/p>\n

The German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim initially developed the pill as an antidepressant. It wasn\u2019t found to be effective in clinical trials, so it was repurposed to address HSDD.<\/p>\n

Known clinically as flibanserin, the medicine is designed to help balance neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine to boost sexual desire.<\/p>\n

It failed to win FDA approval in 2010<\/a> because it wasn\u2019t shown to significantly increase daily sexual desire.<\/p>\n

Sprout Pharmaceuticals co-founder Cindy Eckert spearheaded the successful campaign to get Addyi approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Courtesy of Paramount<\/p>\n

The agency also expressed concern about potential side effects like dizziness, fainting and accidental injury and the drug interacting with alcohol and other medicine.<\/p>\n

Following the FDA rejection, Boehringer Ingelheim sold the flibanserin rights to Sprout Pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n

Sprout co-founder Cindy Eckert took the reins and named the pill for Kate Walsh\u2019s \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy\u201d character, Addison Montgomery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked that she lives life on her own terms, so we called it Addyi,\u201d Eckert said in the documentary.<\/p>\n

How did it finally win FDA approval?<\/p>\n

The name change \u2014 and the additional studies and information Sprout submitted \u2014 didn\u2019t change the FDA\u2019s mind about the potential risks of Addyi. The agency denied approval again in 2013.<\/p>\n

Sprout then took a different tact with its \u201cfemale Viagra.\u201d The company launched the \u201cEven the Score\u201d PR campaign that proclaimed that it was sexist to have many drugs for male sexual dysfunction but none for women.<\/p>\n

The rallying cry was: \u201cWomen have waited long enough.\u201d The initiative even went so far as to parody Viagra ads<\/a>. The blitz worked \u2014 to a degree.<\/p>\n

This little pink pill has been the subject of a lengthy battle about the best way to treat sexual desire problems. AP<\/p>\n

In 2015, the FDA approved Addyi<\/a> to treat HSDD in premenopausal women. But it was given a \u201cblack box\u201d warning \u2014 the highest safety warning \u2014 due to the risks of low blood pressure and fainting when mixed with alcohol.<\/p>\n

Prescribers and pharmacists had to undergo special training to educate patients on the risks of combining Addyi with alcohol.<\/p>\n

Following the FDA approval, Valeant Pharmaceuticals acquired Sprout for approximately $1 billion.<\/p>\n

The hopes were high, but Addyi sales fell far short of expectations<\/a> thanks to a significant price hike and mismanaged marketing. Sprout was eventually returned to its original shareholders.<\/p>\n

Eckert continued her push \u2014 and FDA approval was expanded<\/a> in December 2025 to include postmenopausal women under 65.<\/p>\n

The expansion came even after the FDA sent a warning letter to Eckert<\/a> last year about a social media post that \u201ccreated a misleading impression regarding the safety and effectiveness of Addyi.\u201d<\/p>\n

What are the highlights of the documentary?<\/p>\n

Directed by Canadian filmmaker Aisling Chin-Yee, \u201cThe Pink Pill\u201d won the Audience Award<\/a> at the DOC NYC film festival in November.<\/p>\n

The most compelling parts of the 88-minute documentary are the women who emotionally shared their struggles with HSDD, including a breast cancer survivor who underwent surgical menopause and a woman who faced divorce because of her low sex drive. <\/p>\n

Not everyone was swayed. \u201cHecklers\u201d were shown dismissing these concerns and suggesting several ways to boost low libido without medicine \u2014 like switching boyfriends, eating chocolate, drinking coffee, watching certain episodes of \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy,\u201d reading erotica and getting a new vibrator.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all saying, \u2018You\u2019re doing something wrong, and it\u2019s your fault,’\u201d Eckert said in the doc. \u201cThat was hard to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019ve heard of the little blue pill. Now, a new documentary is turning the spotlight on the pink…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[4528,10167,88,246,33106,97,243,686,4208,247,2824,9625,38098,230619,156113],"class_list":{"0":"post-507422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-womens-health","9":"tag-documentaries","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-fda","12":"tag-greys-anatomy","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-medication","15":"tag-medicine","16":"tag-paramount","17":"tag-pharmaceuticals","18":"tag-prescription-drugs","19":"tag-sex-relationships","20":"tag-sprout-pharmaceuticals","21":"tag-valeant-pharmaceuticals","22":"tag-viagra"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}