Premature Ejaculation May End Soon With New Spray
17 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // October 31st, 2007 // 11:30 am
This gives new meaning to the idea of a little shpritz. A spray-on device designed to eliminate premature ejaculation is making its final thrust in clinical testing and, if it lasts, may help men who can’t. Plethora Solutions has developed the handy product, which will presumably arouse the 30 per cent of the male population who are believed to cross the finish line quickly, according to in-PharmaTechnologist.
Currently, there are no products available, except off-label use of antidepressants or a penile desensitizer, but there’s a rub - those topical lotions generally don’t work very quickly and, sometimes, work too well. And they’re known to get messy. But Plethora believes it could have the first product on the market that works in less than five minutes, is easy to use and can increase the time between penetration and ejaculation four fold - from 0.93 minutes in a placebo group to 3.7 minutes with the spray, the site reports. Even better, the spray lasts two hours and dries quickly.
Plethora discovered a chemical mixture that dissolves easily in a non-CFC propellant, creating the possibility of a spray-on product that delivers a pure active drug. The formulation is only absorbed by open or broken skin, and therefore only penetrates the glans at the tip of the penis and not the shaft, in-PharmaTechnologist writes. The product should cost no more than the options currently prescribed, and will come with a supply that can last two to four months (unless, of course, one uses the shpritz all the time).
For some, however, the anticipation may be too much. Plethora announced the start of Phase III trials yesterday, with pivotal studies expected to take between 12 and 15 months, and a product launch expected toward the end of 2009 - two years from now. Imagine lasting that long.
Chris
Does anybody know what happened to dapoxetine from J&J? That was supposed to be the first approved pharmaceutical for this indication then it just seemed to disappear after phase III studies.
James
Let’s play “count the double entendres”!
1….2….3….4….
Nice to see you have fun w/ an article, Ed :)
Paul Joannides
Chris,
It seems the FDA decided not to approve Dapoxetine. It only resulted in a short delay of ejaculation.
Interestingly, one of the best researchers on the subject predicted it wouldn’t work, in spite of all of the early hype surrounding it. He is European and receives no funding from the pharmaceutical industry. He seems to have had a much clearer mind about it than most–and a better model which was right on the money in terms of predictive value.
One of the things I find suspicious about the Plethora product is that not all men with premature ejaculation come to it with the same etiology. While numbing out the penis may at least help some guys save face, I’m not so sure how satisfying of a solution it will be. We’ll see.
By the way, one of the problems with the desensitizing creams has been the challenge in getting the medication through the tough membrane of the penis. Sometimes, the residual medication ends up numbing the woman’s clitoris, assuming the man’s partner is female.
Trojan has had a condom out for a few years now that desensitizes the penis. I’ve not gotten much feedback on it, so I can’t say.
I’ll keep my ears to the ground, or wherever, on this spray and will update you with any information I find on it.
Yours truly,
Paul Joannides
weekly podcast: http://www.ThePleasureReport.com
website: http://www.goofyfootpress.com
Lisa Van S
Good Morning,…Bob,
Looks like they invented something for what ails you.Maybe they have room in the clinical trial for you!!…..
James
Gee, Lisa Van S, isn’t the bigger story here “Currently, there are no products available, except off-label use of antidepressants”?
Shouldn’t you be mounting a crusade right about now? ED isn’t real–it must be a ploy by the evil drug companies to sell more anti-depressants.
Lisa Van S
James,
Bob has been so cranky lateley, so I thought he would be happy to hear this amazing news.And as far as anti depressants are concerned,…This spray may be a godsend to those men who suffer the antidepressant induced wet noodle syndrome!!!…
And as far as the gentleman are concerned, the wet noodle syndrome is more important,or should we say,more troublesome, than the suicide in teens effect…HMMMMMM
Huh?
Lisa,
Do you bother to read the articles before you post?
Lisa Van S
HUH?
Yes I read the Post!!….Have you read the PI of antidepressants,they can increase, “AND DECREASE” a man’s sexual performance…Duh!…
Lisa Van S
HUH?
Antidepressants and your Libido
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=51118
http://www.nytimes.com/specials/women/warchive/960515_1126.html
Huh?
“wet noodle syndrome” as you so delightfully term it is completely irrelevant to the problem. PE isn’t ED.
The point is that this preparation may offer an alternative for people who currently turn to off-label use of the very drugs you so strongly protest. One would think you would welcome that development.
Chris
If I may - I think the main ’sexual’ side effect seen with antidepressants is decreased libido - more a case of not wanting to get the noodles out of the packet let alone overcook them. The ‘wet noodle syndrome’ is different, and is presumably ED, as Huh? points out. PE can be helped by use of antidepressants (off label) but to get an effect they must be used chronically which does not seem particularly advisable.
James
No no no, Huh? and Chris, you miss the point. Off-label prescribing of anti-depressants for a made-up condition like PE. There’s really no such thing! And if there is, I’m sure only 20 people in the world have it. I’m sure vitamins and exercise can cure it. My sister had it, and she took anti-depressants for it, and it made her life hell!
There ought to be a law! The drug companies are evil. EVIL!
Chris
James,
No - not missing the point just making a different one. Numerous studies have pointed to prevalence of PE in between 21-33% of males based on widely accepted criteria. Off label use of antidepressants is seen but as I think I pointed out, it’s not a particularly sensible thing to do. And it’s physicians who prescribe, not pharma companies. Sorry to hear about your sister - puzzled about her having PE though as it does seem to be a male problem, unless you mean her partner had it. But then again it doesn’t exist, does it?
Lisa Van S
Hey Guys,
What I am saying is this,Antidepressants can, and do, cause PE & ED.And as I said earlier, this spray may be a godsend to those adults who need their antidepressant medications.
We are talking about adults here,”NOT CHILDREN”
Remember that antidepressants in children lack efficacy…
Chris
I don’t see why the efficacy or otherwise of antidepressants in children should even be introduced into this topic. It has no real relevance does it? I understand your point of course, but it’s made in the wrong place. Use of antidepressants to fix PE is one thing - not good - but they aren’t used to bring on ED, which is also not good and different from PE. Anyway, probably enough on this one. G’night
Paul Joannides
The Plethora Solutions PE (premature ejaculation) medication is a proprietary form of lidocaine and prilocaine. There’s nothing new about using lidocaine and prilocaine in trying to help guys last longer. The challenge has been in finding a delivery system that is quick, effective and isn’t a cream, as creams can numb out a partner’s clitoris. Another challenge is in finding a way to delay ejaculation without numbing out the penis. Plethora Solutions feels they have found such a delivery system.
While I’ve only been able to read the abstract of their phase II study, it seems that they have reached statistical significance on improving the IELT (time from putting it in to launching a load). However, they did not reach statistical significance on two other measures that I’m sure they wanted to. These were the index of ejaculatory control (IEC) and sexual quality-of-life (SQoL) scores of patients and their partners.
They also only included statistics from two attempts at intercourse in crunching the numbers for their study. I would want to know why only two, and how those two attempts were selected. And while they have some very competent researchers involved, as with any study, I would want to know the financial relationships between the study authors and Plethora Solutions.
In other words, we need to wait until the phase III trials are done to have a better sense of whether this puppy is going to fly. I certainly hope it does, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if they encounter some stiff hurdles ahead.
As we have learned from the large number of men with ED who are helped by Viagra but never get a refill–relationships are complex. There seems to be more to physical intimacy than a penis that gets hard and stays hard for X number of minutes. In addition, there are also different causes of premature ejaculation in different men. For instance, in one guy, there might by a physical hypersensitivity, while anxiety might be fueling the problem in another man. This isn’t to say that the Plethora PE drug won’t help both, but it might be for very different reasons.
I’ve also got to give the marketing people at Plethora their due. Plethora is concurrently developing a “medical device for the objective evaluation of the condition†in order to “promote reimbursable clinical management of the PE sufferer.†In other words, their device attempts to quantify the problem to help you collect from your insurance company.
This seems to be a device that registers the time between erection and ejaculation. On first look, it appears to assume that all men begin intercourse as soon as they become erect. But maybe their device is more sophisticated than the scant bit of information I’ve seen about it. And their device might be helpful in documenting the extent of the problem for those guys who ejaculate shortly after becoming erect with a partner.
As for the discussion here that anti-depressants cause sexual problems, keep in mind that there is more than one type of anti-depressant. For instance, the kind of sexual problem that you often hear associated with SSRIs is delayed orgasm or anorgasmia, while ED might be more associated with trycyclic antidepressants. Again, generalizations don’t always work too well, as clomipramine (Anafranil) is a trycyclic that is sometimes used off-label to help delay ejaculation.
And finally, I couldn’t help but note that another very cool application for the Plethora Solutions PE drug might be for pain management in burn victims who are undergoing skin transplants.
Lisa Van S
Paul,
Thanks for the information, I had wondered what effects this spray would have on a woman.A numb clitoris is not a good thing.
Pain management for burn victims,…Thats interesting.