New Products: Zestra Aims To Be Viagra For Women

- Jim Edwards

QualiLife Pharmaceuticals will try

to do for women what Viagra did for men with a $20 million campaign for

Zestra, its topical sexual response booster for women.

The campaign, breaking this month, via Kupper Parker Communications, St. Louis, will focus on themes of "pleasure, freedom and confidence," said Mary Barber, an evp with the agency. Radio and TV spots will feature "experts on sexual health who can speak to the clinical benefits [and] some prominent authors," Barber said. She declined to name them.

The entry comes in a category with a big potential audience, but also much controversy and legal wrangling. Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals is facing a class action lawsuit over its product Avlimil, a pill that Berkeley initially advertised as boosting libido. Since the suit was filed, Avlimil was renamed Avlimil Complete and is now touted as a post-menopausal "supplement" for "hormonal imbalance." Berkeley, which did not return a call at press time, spent $34 million advertising Avlimil in 2004, per TNS.

And last December, the FDA barred Procter & Gamble from launching its women's sex drive starter, Intrinsa.

Zestra's main rival on the current market is probably KY's Warming Liquid from Johnson & Johnson unit McNeil-PPC, which spent $12 million on ads last year with the positioning "Discover a breakthrough in intimacy."

What separates Zestra from KY and Avlimil is its semi-medical approach. While no clinical claims are made, said president Martin Crosby, the company has been setting up its soapbox at medical conferences and nurse practitioner gatherings. This will be the first year in which Zestra sees consumer dollars, Crosby said. The product hits drug store shelves in about three weeks.