Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday September 29, 2002
The Observer

It is the seducer's ultimate dream: a potion that will turn a woman's cold indifference into warm sexual interest. Sound improbable? Not any more. Scientists last week revealed they had successfully tested a nasal spray, PT-141, that sent 'healthy, normal women' into states of high sexual arousal.
'The crucial point about PT-141 is that it directly targets the brain's arousal centre,' said Dr Carl Spana, president of Palatin Technologies, of New Jersey. Originally uncovered through tests on rats, the drug aroused female rodents 'so quickly they started mounting males', added Spana.

Now the company hopes to market PT-141 for humans in two or three years though Spana stressed Palatin's main target was people with sexual problems: men with impotence and women with low arousal.

Given that more than 40 per cent of women suffer from 'female sexual dysfunction' - they are interested in sex but cannot reach climax - this still gives PT-141 a massive market while at the same time providing hope for a lot of unsatisfied men.

The drug could even prove to be more popular than Viagra which works by directly stimulating blood flow in sexual organs. But for many women, it is lack of libido - not physiological difficulties - that causes them problems. By contrast, PT-141 targets the brain's arousal centre and looks more likely to defrost sexual interest, says Palatin.

This point was underlined last week when Professor Raymond Rosen of New Jersey's University of Medicine and Dentistry revealed results of the first human trials of PT-141. Sixteen healthy women were given the drug and 16 were given a placebo. All were shown erotic videos, while detectors measured blood flow in their vaginas.

The women given placebos hardly reacted while those on PT-141 had pronounced increases in blood flow - results that demonstrate the drug has potential that goes well beyond its use only as a medical aid, though Spana counselled caution. 'The drug can only be administered as a nasal spray - which isn't good for seducers. You can't put it in a drink and sticking it up a girl's nose is hard to do surreptitiously, after all.

'On the other hand, related compounds could easily be made into pills one day, though I still don't think they will turn on a woman who was previously totally uninterested in a man or in having sex. She has to be halfway there already.'

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