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James G. Pfaus, A Room of One’s Own, The Journal of Sexual Medicine, Volume 8, Issue 2, February 2011, Pages 335–336, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2010.02185.x
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Extract
The failure of flibanserin to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a potential treatment for hypoactive sexual desire disorder in both women and men has left much uncertainty in its wake, most notably about the advance of research in our field. As Michael Sand pointed out cogently in a JSM-sponsored debate at the joint ISSM-ESSM meeting in 2009, we have come to depend on industry support to cover the enormous cost of clinical trials for hormonal or pharmaceutical agents, new surgical techniques, and subjective test development and validation, not to mention basic research in the biology of sexual behavior in humans and animals, and a lower cost for our meetings and journal. Thanks to industry support, we have been able to afford top-quality speakers at our meetings, been able to fund the important work of the ISSM Standards Committee, help defray the cost of the International Consultations in Sexual Medicine (e.g., [1–3]), and we have been able to participate as members of advisory boards, so that our scientific and clinical insights can have a strong voice in the development of different types of pharmaceutical, surgical, and clinical interventions for sexual disorders. Indeed, industry support has helped create a “buzz” around sexual medicine, and especially around the development of pharmaceutical agents, leading to enormous press coverage in the past decade.
