It shouldn’t be hard to see why this may be rather big news. On Monday, Futura Medical announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had just approved its product Eroxon as a new topical treatment for erectile dysfunction (ED). In this case, topical doesn’t just mean “of immediate relevance or interest.” Unlike an oral medication such as Viagra or Cialis, Eroxon isn’t something that you are supposed to swallow. Instead, it’s a gel that can be placed directly onto your penis to help achieve an erection. And on top of that, you won’t need a prescription to get Eroxon as it is will be available over-the-counter.
While this medication has already been available in the U.K. and Belgium, Futura Medical probably expects big things to occur in the U.S. According to Zion Market Research, the global erectile dysfunction drugs market stood at around $3.64 billion in 2021 and is expected to, ahem, grow to about $5.94 billion by 2028. The U.S. certainly has the largest share of this in the world, the largest share of the ED market that is. North America accounted for 51.7% of total revenue from ED medications in 2022, according to Market.us. And the Massachusetts Male Aging Study found that around 52 percent of men experienced some form of ED. That en masse is quite a few men.
Besides being available over-the-counter, which means that you don’t have to have, “Oh, and doc, there’s one other thing I wanted to discuss” conversations, Eroxon does have some other potential advantages over phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibitors such as vardenafil (which is the generic name for Levitra), tadalafil (Cialis, Adcirca), and sildenafil (Viagra). This gel is supposed to act much quicker than other hugely popular erectile dysfunction medications that you take by mouth. For example, typically the effects of Viagra won’t kick in until 30 to 60 minutes after you’ve swallowed the pill, according to the National Library of Medicine. This means that you sort of have to plan your erection. While this doesn’t necessarily imply that you have to schedule the time in your Outlook calendar, it may mean that you have to do things like actually talk to other person or take out the trash while waiting for such phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibitors to start working.
By contrast, it shouldn’t take nearly as long for things to gel, so to speak, according to the Eroxon website. The application of the gel should take only 15 seconds, assuming that you have no problem locating your penis adn don’t play “hard to get” with your penis. Although you won’t have an insta-rection, if the gel works, within 10 minutes, voilà, things should start looking up, so to speak. And holding some kind of conversation for 10 minutes shouldn’t be that difficult.
How does Eroxon work? Well, the website offers the following four steps:
- “You apply the gel shortly before sex.” Because typically that’s when you want to have an erection as opposed to before making dinner or giving a Power Point presentation.
- “Seconds later, gel begins to evaporate, causing rapid cooling. Nerve endings are stimulated.” The cool thing about this is stimulating the nerve endings in your penis can lead to the release of nitric oxide from nerve terminals as well as blood vessels. That, in turn, can lead muscles of your blood vessel- filled corpora cavernosa to relax and allow more blood to flow into this sponge-like material in the shaft of your penis.
- “Seconds to minutes later, recovery warming effect continues to stimulate the nerve endings in the penis.” The Eroxon website includes a diagram showing that this warming effect is supposed to stimulate even deeper blood vessels in your penis, which may be reminiscent of the Bee Gees song “How Deep is Your Love?”
- “Minutes later, blood vessels dilate, increasing blood flow and giving you an erection.” Once more blood flows into your corpus cavernosa, the tunica albuginea, which is a surrounding membrane, then helps to trap blood in there. This is why an erection typically lasts for more than oh a second, which would make sex kind of hard to do.
Of course, nothing works for everyone all of the time. The Eroxon website indicates that effects of gel “It lasts long enough for successful sex to occur in around 65% of people.[1]” This presumably meant that a clinical study showed that around 35% couldn’t achieve or maintain an erection rather than did something to make their partners lose interest in sex such as calling your partner “a majestic little chicken” or using the Yoda voice during the lead up to sex. As you can see, the 65% statement on the website does have a superscript “[1]” next to it. However, clicking on this superscript repeatedly on June 14 didn’t really reveal the actual reference attached to this superscript.
This doesn’t seem like an Eroxon, Eroxoff situation. You won’t have to wipe your penis down to get things down. The website does say “After sex your erection will naturally subside, as it usually would.” It also says that “Tests have shown Eroxon is compatible with latex condoms. It can also be used with sexual lubricants.”
The website does have some oral discourse as well. It addresses the question of whether Eroxon may be safe to put into one’s mouth because penises have been known to reach that part of the body on occasion. The website does say that “Eroxon is safe for use with oral sex.” This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t start layering your cakes with Eroxon, though.
It’s not yet clear how much this gel will end up costing you in the U.S. Currently, in the U.K., you can but four single-use tubes for £24.99, which amounts to $31.49 in U.S. dollars, according to Mary Walrath-Holdridge reporting for USA Today. That’s about the cost of five Cinnabons, assuming that you don’t get extra frosting. Not that the two items are equivalent.
It’s also not yet clear when this gel will actually hit pharmacies and other stores in U.S. So it remains to be seen when you’ll be able to “get your rocks off” with Eroxon. Regardless, once it does, there’s a good chance that this gel will be very, very topical.
Read the full article here
