‘Female Viagra’ CEO leaves company
pharmafile | December 10, 2015 | Appointment | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | Addyi, Cindy Whitehead, Sprout Pharma
Cindy Whitehead has left Sprout Pharmaceuticals, just four months after guiding the female libido drug Addyi to FDA approval and overseeing the company’s $1 billion buyout by Valeant.
In an interview with Bizwomen, Whitehead said she had “seen it through to what I wanted to accomplish”, in getting FDA approval for Addyi (flibanserin) and laying the foundations for a global push to bring the drug to more women.
Whitehead enjoyed a brief but successful tenure after taking the reins at Sprout in January, taking over from her husband and co-founder Bob and launching a successful campaign to drum up public demand for Addyi’s approval.
The high point came in August, when the drug was given the green light by US regulators for hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), despite achieving a limited efficacy profile in clinical trials.
Just 10% more Addyi-treated patients than placebo-treated patients reported meaningful improvements in satisfying sexual events, sexual desire or distress in the 24-week study, and this 10% reported an average of 0.5 more ‘sexually satisfying’ events per month during the trial.
Two days after the FDA approval came the $1 billion dollar buyout by Valeant, in which Sprout became a division of the Canada-based company. Since then, it has grown its sales force considerably, to around 150 nationwide.
Despite this, Addyi has struggled for sales in its first two months on the US market, and only a few hundred prescriptions are said to have been filed for the drug.
A Valeant spokesperson said Raleigh-based Sprout will now be led by two other executives- Tracy Valorie and Ray Larwood, and that Whitehead would continue to work with Sprout as a consultant.
Joel Levy
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