Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder
This website has been poking fun at the nonsense in our healthcare system for 14 years. Why? Because no one else will. Here is an example. Flibanserin (Addyi) is labeled for the treatment of acquired, generalized hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in premenopausal women and it’s a medication that affects serotonin receptors to increase libido. Here is the fun part. Women with HSDD reported an increase of 1.6 to 2.5 additional satisfying sexual events per month with this drug versus .8 to 1.5 additional events with placebo. And this was cleared by the FDA! Yes, you read that right. Flibanserin at a cost of $830 per month (100 mg per day) gives the patient one more satisfying event. I hope this is making your mind spin with ideas because it did mine. What else would a 46-year-old premenopausal women do for that $830 to attain that extra event? The husband could buy her jewelry, spa dates, have the house cleaned, give her a massage, take her to a weekend at a beautiful resort, etc. Or, the women could pay for a high end escort at $500 for a night with the husband and have an extra $300 to play around with. I am just spitballing here but you get my point. I am sure you have some other ideas so please put them in the comment section for others to see.
i did the online training for this drug then had to speak to agent on the phone. they did not seem pleased with me when i referred to this product as an expensive roofie and poking fun at the fact that doctor and patient both must sign a form pledging not to drink alcohol. i told them it IS the alcohol that gets the women interested in the men in the first place! i also made fun of the company’s name. Sprout pharmaceuticals. i told them they should have gone with eggplant or plantain, something that would put a better positive image in the woman’s mind. she isn’t gonna go all hot und heavy over a sprout, know what i mean??? and despite all this i am certified to prescribe although i have not as of yet..
FDA is totally corrupt. This drug will be used by the 75% that get their drugs picked up by taxpayers Medicaid,Medicare, and union government workers. The costs will be shifted to increasing premiums for the rest of us.
Owners of company sold for 1 Billion month after approval.
I can’t go so far to agree with corrupt as I have worked with many of the folks there for a LONG time. the issue is much of what they do is tied by the rules that Congress included when they set up the FDA. If the nation actually wanted to put a “supervisory panel” in place to protect us against bad drugs and to approve drugs that are new or are somehow failing once approved it needed to empower them with current tools NOT tools from the 1950’s
Requiring the FDA to use clninical trials as the benchmark to approval is way too expensive and slows the entire process down too long. We need to get past the hand holding and the like that is required by the law. PharmaCos should be allowed to use running trials as a means of approval.
What that means is once a Phase 1 and or 1 and 2 is complete so we know what dosage and that the drug is basically safe then it should be conditionally approved and allowed to be released to society with mandatory reporting on both good and negative affects in the field. With EMRs it would be quite simply to report to the FDA on each refill what was right what as wrong if things were working and not etc…
This would cut the cost by a HUGE amount and drugs that take 12 years to hit market can hit in 12 MONTHS and can be indefinitely monitored
The FDA is ALL based on the issue of Thalidomide and we as a society have never let them live it down. Time we move past it and use current technology to evaluate and approve drugs as well as require definitive value in order to allow for costs like this one.
Dr D
For less than that husband could maybe take a shower, brush his teeth, buy flowers, clean the kitchen and vacuum the house. And maybe take her out to a nice dinner and rub her feet. Problem solved. Cost well under $200 and that would be a pretty nice restaurant.
test
Doug
If you look critical at 85% of the oncology drugs you will see similar statistics for them as well. MANY chemo drugs add such nonsensical extensions as 22 extra disease free progressive days then placebo. I have seen drugs that add as little as 14 DAYS to a Oncology drug that costs in the range of $25K per month. The FDA and the PharmaCos are spinning statistical tops in hope that no one will notice. Couple it with the fact that we are so desperate to offer our patients any port in a storm and patients are open to doing literally anything to live “a bit” longer that we never include costs or for that matter the fact that statistics are ever included in reality. The likelihood of winning the Lotto is like 1 in a few hundred million BUT if you win it then it was 1 in 1. I get it that if drugs are approved based on statistical success (and I really don’t know what other way they could be) then the real issue is adding something over placebo or competition.
What about rolling trials instead?
I have suggested rolling trials for 30++ years where once a drug is passed the basic safety evaluation and a safe level of drug is determined then instead of posting these nonsensical statistical preferences why not allow the drugs to be approved on a long term conditional trial and let patients use it and doctors report good and bad results on a consistent basis? We could fill out a quick report on each refill or quarterly or the like or build it into the EMR systems to give feedback as to outcomes and side effects rather then an initial yeah or nay and then everyone suffers. In the example the nonsensical results of the one extra day of fun a month would in reality need to be much better in some and of no effect in others to achieve that low a number. Approve the drug and monitor the effects and when the effects drip off the drug is stopped from compensation and use on that patient. Why pay $800 for one evening when as was stated an escort costs $500 and you get fed or a toy from Amazon is $50. We as a society need to say HOLD THAT CALL when results are that scarce but instead we keep paying forever since “the FDA approved it for this use” and regardless if t is actually working on this patient the costs mount
Dr D
Damn, that actually makes sense.
For $40 or less you can get a device which provides dozens of satisfying sexual events per month. Amazon even offers Frustration-Free Packaging.
Pfizer should get right on that (ahem). With a couple of “studies,” maybe they could get one approved, then sell a single-use model for $1,000, and go after all of those non-medical ones for patent infringement, or for selling medical products without a prescription.
I see a potential goldmine.
For less than that, she could get a divorce, take half his income, and find a younger guy.