Post by IAMCAPER on Jun 30, 2004 11:49:20 GMT -4
TORONTO — While men have such drugs as Viagra to give them a boost in the bedroom, there’s really nothing on pharmacists’ shelves for sexual disorders that commonly affect women. So a drug that makes female rats rev up their ‘‘Do it to me now’’ signals is offering hope for their human counterparts.
The drug, a synthetic hormone called PT-141, appears to work within the brain to fan the flames of sexual desire, says James Pfaus of Concordia University in Montreal, who began testing PT-141 on laboratory rats in 2001.
An estimated 30 per cent of North American and European women suffer sexual desire disorders, which include poor libido, low ability to become aroused, inability to have an orgasm and painful intercourse.
‘‘Right now, there’s nothing in the arsenal for women to treat a desire disorder,’’ Pfaus, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, said. ‘‘There’s no drug out there other than estrogen, which carries with it — especially for postmenopausal women — its own problems.
‘‘I think this is the first salvo in our efforts to be able to treat female desire disorder.’’
Pfaus’s research team began testing PT-141 on female rats at the behest of Palatin Technologies, a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company which hopes to get FDA approval for PT-141 in a nasal spray to help men with erectile dysfunction and women with sexual desire disorders.
Female rats injected with PT-141, which mimics a naturally occurring hormone in the body, increased solicitation behaviour around males, which includes hopping and darting, as well as running away, then coming back — a female rat’s way of sending flirtatious ‘‘come-hither’’ messages, he said.
Annette Shadiack, a director of research for Palatin, said from Cranberry, N.J., that unlike ‘‘vasodilators’’ such as Viagra — which increase blood flow to the genital area — PT-141 acts on centres in the brain to jump-start desire, which in turn can cause increased genital blood flow in men and women alike.
Palatin Technologies has done preliminary studies of PT-141 in women and more advanced studies in men. They hope to have approval for a nasal spray — so far unnamed — for men by 2007, she said.
One for women could follow within the next few years.
The drug, a synthetic hormone called PT-141, appears to work within the brain to fan the flames of sexual desire, says James Pfaus of Concordia University in Montreal, who began testing PT-141 on laboratory rats in 2001.
An estimated 30 per cent of North American and European women suffer sexual desire disorders, which include poor libido, low ability to become aroused, inability to have an orgasm and painful intercourse.
‘‘Right now, there’s nothing in the arsenal for women to treat a desire disorder,’’ Pfaus, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, said. ‘‘There’s no drug out there other than estrogen, which carries with it — especially for postmenopausal women — its own problems.
‘‘I think this is the first salvo in our efforts to be able to treat female desire disorder.’’
Pfaus’s research team began testing PT-141 on female rats at the behest of Palatin Technologies, a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company which hopes to get FDA approval for PT-141 in a nasal spray to help men with erectile dysfunction and women with sexual desire disorders.
Female rats injected with PT-141, which mimics a naturally occurring hormone in the body, increased solicitation behaviour around males, which includes hopping and darting, as well as running away, then coming back — a female rat’s way of sending flirtatious ‘‘come-hither’’ messages, he said.
Annette Shadiack, a director of research for Palatin, said from Cranberry, N.J., that unlike ‘‘vasodilators’’ such as Viagra — which increase blood flow to the genital area — PT-141 acts on centres in the brain to jump-start desire, which in turn can cause increased genital blood flow in men and women alike.
Palatin Technologies has done preliminary studies of PT-141 in women and more advanced studies in men. They hope to have approval for a nasal spray — so far unnamed — for men by 2007, she said.
One for women could follow within the next few years.