FDA advisers to assess drug for low sexual desire in women

Advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration will meet on 18 June to assess the drug flibanserin as a potential treatment for women said to have low sexual desire, or “hypoactive sexual desire disorder.”

Flibanserin was originally developed as an anti-depressant, but was not found to be effective and was never approved as one. Its German manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim has recently released abstracts of unpublished randomised trials testing the drug’s potential sexual benefits in women.

According to the abstracts, the company’s trials of flibanserin in Europe failed to show any statistically significant benefit compared with placebo on the primary outcome measure: the number of “satisfying sexual events.” A satisfying sexual event can …