Addyi works on neurotransmitters in the brain. If you think of other drugs that work in the central nervous system, we don’t separate populations by age in the same way.
Sprout’s previous marketing campaign, “Even the Score,” argued that there were 26 drugs for male sexual dysfunction, but none for women, ignoring the fact that Addyi tackles a very different problem than Viagra. Perhaps the one thing Viagra and Addyi have in common is that both reify unrealistic, normative standards for what sexual behavior should look like. Viagra gave us the narrative that male sexuality is mechanical, a simple on-off switch—that what matters for men is not their desire, but their erections. Meanwhile, the way people talk about Addyi narrows the conversation around female sexual problems, says Brotto. If drugs like Addyi are the only tools doctors have to offer, she worries, they’ll reach for them before determining what other factors might be leading to a patient's lack of lust.
“If all you have is a hammer, right?” she said. The gendered narratives behind these pills obscure the fact that desire and arousal, mind and body, are involved in every sexual experience. They also obscure the fact that the real female Viagra is, well, Viagra. In people with vulvas, Viagra works in exactly the same way, pumping blood to the genitals and leading to clitoral and labial swelling. Researchers are currently investigating the use of topical sildenafil (the generic form of Viagra) gel to increase sensation, arousal, and orgasm in women.
And while Addyi has mainly been tested in heterosexual, pre-menopausal, partnered women, there is no reason it can’t be used in queer women, post-menopausal women, gender-diverse folks, and yes, men (who, it turns out, also have brains). Once we get beyond the his-and-hers, pink-and-blue branding, it’s clear that, like sexual pleasure, these drugs have no gender. Fifteen years ago if you’d told me that my mission for women’s sexual health to receive equal consideration would be the subject of a independent documentary I would have laughed. “It’s just science” I would have said…. Never did I anticipate all of the roadblocks, personal attacks or blatant misinformation that were going to be part of this path to equality. It’s the same molecule, and the same dosage as Addyi that was approved for HSDD. But there is a pattern in women’s health where we lead with a skewed point of view on the importance of factors—including the desire for sex—that are societally conditioned.
| Product | Dosage | Quantity + Bonus | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kamagra Effervescent Tablets | 100 mg | 14 Pills | 51.61€ 49.15€ | |
| Viagra Soft Tabs | 100mg | 120 + 8 Pills | 232.21€ 221.15€ | |
| Viagra Generic | 50mg | 270 + 8 Pills | 198.48€ 189.03€ | |
| Apcalis SX Oral Jelly | 20mg | 17 + 4 Sachets | 95.52€ 90.97€ | |
| Cialis Soft Tabs | 20mg | 180 + 8 Pills | 353.17€ 336.35€ | |
| Levitra Professional | 20mg | 360 + 6 Pills | 914.63€ 871.08€ | |
| Cialis Generic | 5mg | 120 + 6 Pills | 132.92€ 126.59€ | |
| Levitra Professional | 20mg | 90 + 2 Pills | 304.49€ 289.99€ | |
| Cialis Generic | 60mg | 180 + 10 Pills | 313.11€ 298.20€ | |
| Kamagra Soft Tabs | 100 mg | 120 + 6 Pills | 311.78€ 296.93€ |
The world wasn’t ready for a female Viagra. Not only do we rule out anything a woman is experiencing as probably emotional and not medical, if there is a medical solution, we lead with its risk. The reason for that is that we have already dismissed that there is any benefit in addressing her symptoms.
To me, we played the long game, and culture caught up. I built a male sexual health company at a time when there was only long-acting testosterone treatment for men. Now there are 26 FDA-approved treatments for some form of male sexual dysfunction, but there were none for women. I watched the big guns not do anything about the science, and that was a commentary on the perspective they had on women’s health: they don’t value sexual health in women the same as they do in men. We left women out of the conversation. Read More: How to Fight Hair Loss During Menopause When Addyi first came out, there were discussions about the risks when taken with alcohol. Studies showed that some women experienced side effects including dizziness, sleepiness and nausea, and less than 2% had to discontinue Addyi because of them. So if you have one or two drinks in the evening, wait a couple of hours before taking Addyi at bedtime.
| Side Effect | Description | Risk Factors | Recommendations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nausea | Feeling of sickness after intake | Sensitive stomachs | Take with food |
| Headaches | Mild to moderate headaches | Dehydration, stress | Stay hydrated, reduce stress |
| Hormonal Disruption | Imbalance caused by hormonal ingredients | Overuse, interaction with medications | Consult a doctor before use |
| Allergic Reactions | Rash, swelling, itching | Allergies to herbal ingredients | Discontinue use, seek medical help |
Or if you have more than three drinks, then skip Addyi that night.
Nor did I expect three absolutely incredible, award winning, female filmmakers to reach out and tell me they were making a film about it. I didn’t want to revisit the past when it’s been 15 years of telling myself just look forward. But they reminded me that sometimes you have to go back to the beginning to break the future wide open. That is why they chose to make this film. They are on the same mission as I am.
As are all of the incredible doctors, advocates and women in this film who are my inspiration to continue to show up and fight for what’s right. It’s the stuff of movies as they say… Streaming March 6th Paramount+ @thepinkpillfilm Everywoman Studios I cannot WAIT to meet you tonight Cindy Eckert on the pink carpet, Cindy. I’ll be proudly PInK and I’m genuinely obsessed with joining your fight to close the gap in awareness, fundingh, and seriousness around women’s sexual health. As someone who has spent decades listening to women’s stories about how intimacy and desire caused a marriage breakdown….I’m honored to stand beside you and use my LOUDEST voice to spread awareness for the PINK pill! How did I not even know myself about Addyi myself???
Side effects are horrible with Addyi, my blood pressure went way low I almost passed out. Thank goodness my sex drive came back naturally. Cannot wait to watch Cindy Eckert you are MY inspiration behind Lorai Health, and I just keep telling myself you did it, we - my cofounder Raisa Monteiro - can do it too. You have done incredible research and the amount of work and effort you have into women's health is very inspiring. Women outside the industry dont believe it because it is inconcibible. We [as a society] talk about the risks of Addyi and alcohol in every article.
But it’s not our call, it’s every woman’s call.
Addyi works by addressing neurotransmitters like dopamine, vardenafil 10 mg tablet norepinephrine, and serotonin in the brain, balancing them to stimulate sexual desire signals while suppressing inhibitory ones. The pill has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since 2015 to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in pre-menopausal women, and the expanded approval includes women under age 65 who are past menopause, a time when hormone levels drop and libido changes. The FDA required an additional review of data on women after menopause to ensure the drug’s safety and efficacy in the larger age group—a requirement that Cindy Eckert, Sprout’s CEO, says represents a double standard and stigma against addressing sexual desire in women, since that data was part of the company's original submission for approval and included women 18 to 80 years old. Eckert discussed with TIME the company’s long road to the approval and the larger issues facing certain medicines for women.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. I might not have fully processed yet how big this win is. It’s an historic first in women’s health. I think this signifies not only scientific recognition of a medical condition that affects millions of women that had been previously discussed only with stigma, not science, but also a cultural recognition that we value sexual health as part of women’s overall wellness, their longevity, and their well-being. And that their sex life doesn’t end at menopause. She gets to weigh the benefits—more desire for sex, more interest in sex, more satisfying sexual events, and less stress over her condition. More women experience sexual dysfunction than men globally.
The expansion to post-menopausal women is long overdue.
As a female founder in health, even when raising money for this product that has a higher prevalence than erectile dysfunction, we weren’t getting any money from Sand Hill Road [a part of Silicon Valley rife with venture capitalists].
But we will not stop until every women is able to receive the right care. Thank you Cindy Eckert for a cool decade of blood sweat and tears for the very first SexDrug (and Rock n Roll) for us....and to push and push uphill against to get the December 2025 approval was just monumental. Thanks for the courage I know it took to do this film. If you told me 30 years ago that women were at risk of having their genitals removed due to vulva cancer which happened to myself and other women. Still 30 years later women seem reluctant to open the conversations of the importance of vulval health.
The stigma needs to be broken in womens health. This is FABULOUS, so well-deserved, and a story that every woman and every person should know! Can't wait to see it and celebrate it 🩷 🎬 🥂 ! I’ve shared it with so many people since you first told me about it two years ago at SXSW. So inspiring to see how far it’s come — and I know this is just the beginning.
I was awe struck meeting you 7 yrs ago and still am. Thank you for your genius, bravery and perseverance. Women need people like you who stick up for what's right and uncomfortable. On Dec. 15, Sprout Pharmaceuticals received approval to use its pill, Addyi (flibanserin), to treat low sexual desire in women who are past menopause. I had built a successful company in men’s sexual health. I had seen what the standard was there. When the same standard wasn’t applied for women, I questioned it and pushed back. I had a six-hour, very public conversation with the FDA about this, and there was a lot of manufactured controversy—because of how we feel about women and sex. The fact is that 50% of the population goes through menopause, and we’re told, “Just relax, take a bubble bath; it’s just a transition period.” It’s literally a biological phenomenon, and we treat it by telling people to just calm down.
And I should have anticipated that the first-ever drug for women’s sexual pleasure would not follow a straight line. To me, it’s about the science. Medicine has understood it for some time now, but what crept in was social commentary, a societal bias that questions whether pleasure matters for women. Read More: What to Know About Early Menopause In the end, Addyi was approved [in 2015 for pre-menopausal women] on the basis of science, with clinical trials involving 13,000 women, which was three times the size of the trials conducted on Viagra at the time of its [FDA] submission. Granted, erectile dysfunction is different from HSDD in women, but the FDA took six months to approve Viagra, and by contrast it took us six years to earn approval for Addyi.