Once the Food and Drug Administration approved Addyi, a failed antidepressant repackaged as a libido pill for women, drug-maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals bought the company selling Addyi for $1 billion. If they were expecting to cash in on a blockbuster drug, early sales aren’t very promising: in the first month, only 227 prescriptions for the drug have been written.

As we explained when Addyi was finally approved on its third time through the FDA process, the drug began its existence as an antidepressant that wasn’t particularly effective. Some women who took part in trials noticed a useful side effect, though, and eventually the drug was tested as a libido aid.

The number of women for whom the drug is effective is relatively small, which means a patient would need to take it for a few months, then decide whether it improved her sex life enough to risk its side effects and pay for the drug, with or without insurance.

Only 5,600 doctors have gone through the 10 minutes of training that certifies them to prescribe Addyi, which is another factor that helps explain why so few prescriptions have been written so far. At the same point in Viagra’s history, doctors had written 500,000 prescriptions. (Addyi is often compared to Viagra despite being almost nothing like Viagra whatsoever.)

The Female Libido Pill Is No Viagra [Bloomberg News] (via Jezebel)

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