Impotence: Neglected Disorder Set To Undergo Rapid Change

New research into treatments for male erectile dysfunction and impotence is generating potential new products which could do away with some of the more unpleasant and inconvenient aspects of current therapy, such as the need for intrapenile injections prior to intercourse.

It has become established that many cases of impotence have a physiological rather than a psychological basis and can respond well to pharmacological intervention, usually with intracavernosal injections of vasoactive drugs such as papaverine (with or without phentolamine), and more recently with Upjohn's Caverject Sterile Powder (alprostadil) which was first approved in Sweden in 1994 and has just been cleared for marketing in the USA (see page 19).

However, the limitations of injectable treatments are obvious, and considerable research is now being conducted in the search for alternative routes of administration, particularly the oral, transdermal or transurethral routes. Alternative formulations would certainly be welcomed by the considerable number of men who suffer from impotence, and the potential market for these treatments is not insignificant, so new innovations are likely to achieve rapid take-up in a large, underserved patient population.