By Kathleen Doheny
WebMD Health News
An investigational drug that didn't perform well as an antidepressant appears to slightly boost sexual desire as well as the number of satisfying sexual encounters in women with lagging libidos, a study shows.
The research was presented this week at the 12th Congress of the European Society for Sexual Medicine in Lyon, France.
Some wonder if the drug, called flibanserin, will be the new ''female Viagra," but critics say the effect is minimal. Meanwhile, the manufacturer is planning additional clinical trials and expanding the participant pool to include older women.
The big news, according to those who studied flibanserin? "There is something that works on the neurotransmitters in the central nervous system to alter sexual desire in a positive way," says John M. Thorp Jr., MD, McAllister distinguished professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and a principal investigator for the U.S. trials.
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