BIO 2025: Providing Longer-Lasting Potency Effects
In advance of BIO 2025, The Pharma Navigator chats with Elin Trampe from Dicot Pharma, to learn more about the field of potency drugs and how an innovative treatment in development is offering new potential.
The therapeutic landscape for erectile dysfunction has been dominated by phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitors for some time; however, the efficacy of these drugs is dependent on whether or not there is sufficient arterial inflow to the penis. Additionally, the duration of action for PDE5 drugs is generally short, for example, sildenafil (Viagra) works for approximate four hours (1), and require the user to plan ahead for sexual activity.
“Viagra was launched in 1998, that’s almost 30 years ago, and since then, no real innovation has actually entered this market,” emphasizes Elin Trampe, CEO of Dicot Pharma — a Swedish pharma company focused on developing the next-generation of erectile dysfunction treatments. “[The market] is now dominated by the PDE5 inhibitors, but what we see is that there is huge need for new, improved treatment in this field.”
According to Trampe, many people who take PDE5 inhibitors end up discontinuing treatment as a result of different factors, such as poor or non-response to the drug, disturbing side effects, and the necessity to plan out sexual activity, which removes spontaneity in relationships. “This is where we have come in with our drug candidate, LIB-01,” she says.
Dicot’s innovative drug candidate features a different mechanism of action (2), which has led to a longer duration of action, Trampe continues. “So, what we have seen is that LIB-01 affects the nerves and vascular structures that play a very central role in penile erection,” she explains. “To put it a little bit more in context, penile erection occurs as a response to sexual stimulation, which starts a cascade of different vascular events, and everything is under neural command. A dramatic increase of blood inflow to the penis is essential and, in all this, the vascular structures and the nerves interact. What we have seen then, is that when studying gene expression, which is a natural occurring process, very crucial for various biological functions, LIB-01 affects specific nerves and arterial structures — the more underlying functions. So, this is very different versus the current medications, which acts more on the erectile tissue itself.”
Click the video above to view the full interview
References
Fabbri, A.; Aversa, A. The Therapeutic Dilemma: How to Use Shirt-Acting PDE5 Inhibitor Drugs. Int. J. Androl., 2005, 28 (s2), 69–73.
Thomas, F. Dicot Pharma Unveils MoA Findings for Potency Therapy. The Pharma Navigator, June 3, 2025.
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