Dec 11 2025, 09:14 PM, updated 3d ago
Today, doctors can begin prescribing a first-of-its-kind arousal cream for women.
Daré Bioscience, a biotech company focused solely on women’s health innovations, launched DARE to PLAY™, a cream to improve women’s sexual health and desire.
The product, which is now available in some states through prescription, is made with the same active ingredient as Viagra: sildenafil. Viagra was FDA-approved in 1998 to treat erectile dysfunction in men, and nearly thirty years later, momentum to create similar products for women has lagged far behind. At least one in five women will experience low libido or struggle with arousal during sex; for women in midlife, low libido is more common amid hormonal fluctuations.
“We knew from existing research that the same active ingredient in Viagra could have similar benefits for women, but when taken as a pill, it caused unwanted side effects,” CEO of Daré Bioscience Sabrina Johnson tells Flow Space. “So, we asked a simple question: what if we could deliver it differently?”
The topical cream formulation works by increasing blood flow before a sexual activity by opening and relaxing blood vessels in the clitoris and vulva, where the cream is applied. Johnson hopes this launch marks a shift toward closing the gender desire gap.
“Men were very loud about the fact that it was so critical to their sexual function and sexual activity to be able to have an erection. With women, it has been viewed as more complicated … but it’s not,” says Johnson. “It’s really not that much more complicated. There’s desire [and] there’s arousal, just like in men.”
Johnson, who has worked in women’s health innovation for over two decades, hopes this product not only serves women’s sexual health but also normalizes it as an integral pillar of their whole health. In the meantime, DARE to PLAY joins a sparse field of prescription arousal products for women. Sprout Pharmaceuticals’ Addyi, a pill to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premenopausal women, faced an uphill battle before receiving FDA approval in 2015.
Innovations are welcome. As Dr. Sadaf Lodhi, a sex counselor and board-certified OB-GYN, told Flow Space, women have long felt obligated to normalize low libido and painful sex. “I think we are making headway. Ten years ago, no one was talking about libido as much. [Women] don’t need to settle for sex being painful or a decreased libido if it’s bothering them,” she says. “To want sex is to have sex worth wanting. I always say to my patients, ‘if you’re not experiencing pleasure with intimacy, then you’re not going to want it.’”
Johnson says that successfully creating the formulation, ensuring it could work in 10 minutes, was integral to getting the cream to market to serve women’s needs. “Decades of underfunding and underdevelopment have also led many women to deprioritize their sexual health or, worse, turn to risky, unregulated treatments that, more and more, are being advertised as safe and effective,” says Johnson. “I think we’ll start to see women put more pressure on companies to deliver real, science-backed solutions.”
While Daré Bioscience’s cream is not currently FDA-approved, Johnson has her sights on approval in the future. For now, the product is available as a compounded topical through Section 503B of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA), meaning it is produced at an FDA-registered outsourcing facility. The cream underwent toxicology testing; a randomized, placebo-controlled study; and was manufactured under cGMP requirements.
https://www.theflowspace.com/physical-healt...o-play-3013300/
Arousal cream for women
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