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You’ve heard of the little blue pill. Now, a new documentary is turning the spotlight on the pink one.
Men have had pharmaceutical options for erectile dysfunction for decades — Viagra and Cialis are just a few.
But a female libido pill has been more elusive. Enter Addyi.
While drugs like Viagra work by increasing blood flow to the genitals, the daily pink pill focuses on brain-based approaches to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder.
HSDD is characterized by low or no sex drive for at least six months. Even as the condition affects about 10% of women, Addyi endured a difficult six-year journey to securing approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
“The Pink Pill: Sex, Drugs & Who Has Control” — premiering Friday on Paramount+ — explores the obstacles that Addyi overcame, thanks to a persistent marketing campaign that highlighted gender bias in drug approvals.
What is Addyi?
The German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim initially developed the pill as an antidepressant. It wasn’t found to be effective in clinical trials, so it was repurposed to address HSDD.
Known clinically as flibanserin, the medicine is designed to help balance neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine to boost sexual desire.
It failed to win FDA approval in 2010 because it wasn’t shown to significantly increase daily sexual desire.
The agency also expressed concern about potential side effects like dizziness, fainting and accidental injury and the drug interacting with alcohol and other medicine.
Following the FDA rejection, Boehringer Ingelheim sold the flibanserin rights to Sprout Pharmaceuticals.
Sprout co-founder Cindy Eckert took the reins and named the pill for Kate Walsh’s “Grey’s Anatomy” character, Addison Montgomery.
“I liked that she lives life on her own terms, so we called it Addyi,” Eckert said in the documentary.
How did it finally win FDA approval?
The name change — and the additional studies and information Sprout submitted — didn’t change the FDA’s mind about the potential risks of Addyi. The agency denied approval again in 2013.
Sprout then took a different tact with its “female Viagra.” The company launched the “Even the Score” PR campaign that proclaimed that it was sexist to have many drugs for male sexual dysfunction but none for women.
The rallying cry was: “Women have waited long enough.” The initiative even went so far as to parody Viagra ads. The blitz worked — to a degree.
In 2015, the FDA approved Addyi to treat HSDD in premenopausal women. But it was given a “black box” warning — the highest safety warning — due to the risks of low blood pressure and fainting when mixed with alcohol.
Prescribers and pharmacists had to undergo special training to educate patients on the risks of combining Addyi with alcohol.
Following the FDA approval, Valeant Pharmaceuticals acquired Sprout for approximately $1 billion.
The hopes were high, but Addyi sales fell far short of expectations thanks to a significant price hike and mismanaged marketing. Sprout was eventually returned to its original shareholders.
Eckert continued her push — and FDA approval was expanded in December 2025 to include postmenopausal women under 65.
The expansion came even after the FDA sent a warning letter to Eckert last year about a social media post that “created a misleading impression regarding the safety and effectiveness of Addyi.”
What are the highlights of the documentary?
Directed by Canadian filmmaker Aisling Chin-Yee, “The Pink Pill” won the Audience Award at the DOC NYC film festival in November.
The most compelling parts of the 88-minute documentary are the women who emotionally shared their struggles with HSDD, including a breast cancer survivor who underwent surgical menopause and a woman who faced divorce because of her low sex drive.
Not everyone was swayed. “Hecklers” were shown dismissing these concerns and suggesting several ways to boost low libido without medicine — like switching boyfriends, eating chocolate, drinking coffee, watching certain episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy,” reading erotica and getting a new vibrator.
“That’s all saying, ‘You’re doing something wrong, and it’s your fault,’” Eckert said in the doc. “That was hard to watch.”
