Fight Over 'Little Pink Pill' Raises Sexism Questions

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.

• The term "pink pill" is often used metaphorically for gender-specific health solutions.
• Ongoing research aims to develop more effective, safe female libido enhancers.
• Cultural acceptance of such pills varies globally, affecting accessibility.
• Awareness about female sexual health continues to grow, driving demand.

We left women out of the conversation. And I should have anticipated that the first-ever drug for women’s sexual pleasure would not follow a straight line.

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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.

Drug Interactions

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. 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. 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.

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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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

• The popularity of pink pills reflects increasing openness about female sexuality.
• They may also contain vitamins and minerals for overall reproductive health.
• Effectiveness depends on individual health conditions and underlying issues.
• Some formulations are designed for specific age groups or hormonal states.

So if you have one or two drinks in the evening, wait a couple of hours before taking Addyi at bedtime. Or if you have more than three drinks, then skip Addyi that night. 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. 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].

• The pink pill can improve blood flow, leading to increased arousal.
• It may help with vaginal dryness or discomfort during intimacy.
• Psychological factors, like stress, also influence its effectiveness.
• Combining with counseling or therapy can enhance results.

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.

Is Addyi right for me?

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. 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. 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. There’s a concept in medicine that women’s symptoms are considered more likely to be psychosomatic and more likely based in emotions. It shows up in the way we treat women’s heart attacks, and that it takes longer to prescribe pain medication for women than for men. To me, the basis of that is that we believe women are entirely psychological creatures rooted in emotion, while men are biological creatures. That gives us as a society extraordinary permission to dismiss what women are experiencing, because once we decide that women are emotional, any symptom women report, they’re patted on the shoulder and told to relax. We’ve created a culture of dismissal. To me, this is a litmus test for what this conversation is going to be like. Now we are saying half of the population goes through this thing called menopause.

What challenges have you faced in bringing a pill for women in menopause to market?

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. Addyi works by addressing neurotransmitters like dopamine, 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.

What should I do if I accidentally use too much Addyi?

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 erection tablets yet how big this win is. Now we are taking it, I hope, a little more seriously. It will be fascinating if this conversation is fundamentally different this time around. Addyi is a case study for whether things have actually changed.

Controversy Over the Little Pink Pill

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. 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.

How can I get more information about Addyi?

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. Pink is a bit of active defiance to me. When people were patting me on the shoulder, saying, ‘Oh the little pink pill,’ I recognized that in that was dismissiveness and trivialization, and that was the very conversation I wanted to have: you perceive [women’s loss of sexual desire] as weakness or unimportant, but I see it very differently.

Type	Main Ingredients	Targeted Issue	Availability
Herbal Pink Pill	Ginseng, Rhodiola, Maca	Energy and libido enhancement	Over-the-counter supplements
Hormonal Pink Pill	Low-dose estrogen, vitamins	Hormonal imbalance, menopause	Prescription required
Herbal-Plus Pink Pill	Combination of herbs and vitamins	General wellness	Supplements, online stores
Sleep-support Pink Pill	Melatonin, valerian root	Sleep disorders	Pharmacies, herbal stores

I was criticized for wearing pink and was told people wouldn’t take me seriously. But I believe you always get two choices.

Addyi is the #1 Prescribed Treatment for HSDD.1

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!

What should I do if I miss a dose of Addyi?

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. You either lean back away from it and distance yourself, or you lean right in toward it.

I M P R E S S U M