Challenges in sexual medicine

The sexual medicine field has been in mode of revolution until recently. Like all other fields of biomedical research, the economic situation around the world has had a negative impact on the field's momentum-research funding bodies, regulatory bodies and pharmaceutical companies seem to have placed sexual medicine in their low-priority list. But this is not the only challenge the field is facing. The successful development of phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors for treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED) means that research in this area seems to have slowed. However, there remain several unmet medical needs within sexual medicine such as premature ejaculation, severe ED and hypoactive sexual desire disorder, which await novel therapeutic approaches. Despite these challenges, research into finding and developing such therapies is likely to continue in the sexual medicine field, in an effort to improve the lives of our patients, who wait for effective therapies.