Jump to content
Medicine PT-141

A precision-instrument readout of the PT-141 (bremelanotide) literature — the approved-population evidence, the effect-size debate, and the tolerability picture read first.

Where each PT-141 fact came from

PT-141 References for Every Study Finding

You can trace a number to the trial, label, or review that reported it. Notes flag one disputed paper and one company release.

See the studies explainedRead about the site

Use the Number Beside a Claim to Find Its Source

Each number in square brackets sends you to this list of PT-141 sources. It works like a footnote in your newspaper. Where a sentence carries two or three numbers, each is a separate source backing it up. PubMed is a government library of study papers, and ClinicalTrials.gov lists studies and their plans. DailyMed holds official drug labels, and the NIH Bookshelf holds health reviews.

Two sources need extra care. Reference 13 carries a 2023 journal warning called an Expression of Concern, so its result is disputed. Reference 14 is a company press release. It shows work began, not that it worked.

  1. Molinoff PB, Shadiack AM, Earle D, Diamond LE, Quon CY. PT-141: a melanocortin agonist for the treatment of sexual dysfunction. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2003;994:96-102. ↗
  2. Pfaus J, Shadiack A, Van Soest T, Tse M, Molinoff P. Selective facilitation of sexual solicitation in the female rat by a melanocortin receptor agonist. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004;101:10201-10204. ↗
  3. Kingsberg SA, Clayton AH, Portman D, Williams LA, Krop J, Jordan R, Lucas J, Simon JA. Bremelanotide for the Treatment of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder: Two Randomized Phase 3 Trials. Obstet Gynecol. 2019;134(5):899-908. (NCT02333071) ↗
  4. Simon JA, Kingsberg SA, Portman D, Williams LA, Krop J, Jordan R, Lucas J, Clayton AH. Long-Term Safety and Efficacy of Bremelanotide for Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. Obstet Gynecol. 2019;134(5):909-917. (NCT02333071) ↗
  5. Thurston L, Hunjan T, Mills EG, Wall MB, Ertl N, Phylactou M, et al. Melanocortin 4 receptor agonism enhances sexual brain processing in women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder. J Clin Invest. 2022;132(19):e152341. (NCT04179734) ↗
  6. U.S. Food and Drug Administration / DailyMed. Bremelanotide Injection — US Prescribing Information. 2019. (NDA 210557) ↗
  7. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (LiverTox). Bremelanotide — LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury. NCBI Bookshelf. 2021. ↗
  8. Spielmans GI. Re-Analyzing Phase III Bremelanotide Trials for "Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder" in Women. J Sex Res. 2021;58(9):1085-1105. ↗
  9. Spielmans GI. Small Effects, Questionable Outcomes: Bremelanotide for Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. J Sex Res. 2024. ↗
  10. Edinoff AN, Sanders NM, Lewis KB, Apgar TL, Cornett EM, Kaye AM, Kaye AD. Bremelanotide for Treatment of Female Hypoactive Sexual Desire. Neurol Int. 2022;14(1):75-88. ↗
  11. Dooley AB, Houssaini AS, Tsai T, Ramasamy R. Use of Telemedicine for Sexual Medicine Patients. Sex Med Rev. 2020;8(4):507-517. ↗
  12. Borland JM, Kohut-Jackson AL, Peyla AC, Hall MA, Mermelstein PG, Meisel RL. Female Syrian hamster analyses of bremelanotide, a US FDA approved drug for the treatment of female hypoactive sexual desire disorder. Neuropharmacology. 2025;:110299. ↗
  13. Safarinejad MR, Hosseini SY. Salvage of Sildenafil Failures With Bremelanotide: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo Controlled Study. J Urol. 2008;179(3):1066-1071. [Expression of Concern published 2023, J Urol; PMID 36626345 — treat findings as disputed.] ↗
  14. Palatin Technologies, Inc. Palatin Announces the Initiation of a Phase 2 Clinical Study of Bremelanotide Co-Administered with a PDE5i for the Treatment of Erectile Dysfunction (ED). Corporate press release. 2024. [Development-status statements only; not peer-reviewed.] ↗
  15. Dhillon S, Keam SJ. Bremelanotide: First Approval. Drugs. 2019;79:1599-1606. ↗
  16. White WB, Myers MG, Jordan R, Lucas J. Usefulness of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring to assess the melanocortin receptor agonist bremelanotide. J Hypertens. 2017;35(4):761-768. ↗
  17. Clayton AH, Lucas J, DeRogatis LR, Jordan R. Phase I Randomized Placebo-controlled, Double-blind Study of the Safety and Tolerability of Bremelanotide Coadministered With Ethanol in Healthy Male and Female Participants. Clin Ther. 2017;39(3):514-526.e14. ↗
  18. Clayton AH, Kingsberg SA, Portman D, Sadiq A, Jordan R, Lucas J, Spana C, Simon JA. Safety Profile of Bremelanotide Across the Clinical Development Program. J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2022;31(2):171-182. ↗
  19. Mestria S, Odoardi S, Frison G, Strano Rossi S. LC-HRMS characterization of the skin pigmentation and sexual enhancers melanotan II and bremelanotide sold on the black market of performance and image enhancing drugs. Drug testing and analysis. 2021. ↗
  20. Nelson ME, Bryant SM, Aks SE. Melanotan II injection resulting in systemic toxicity and rhabdomyolysis. Clinical toxicology (Philadelphia, Pa.). 2012. ↗
  21. Spana C, Jordan R, Fischkoff S. Effect of bremelanotide on body weight of obese women: Data from two phase 1 randomized controlled trials. Diabetes Obes Metab. 2022;24(6):1084-1093. ↗
  22. Bardhan M, Anand A, Javed A, Chilo MA, Khan N, Garg T. Polymorphism of Melanocortin Receptor Genes-Association with Inflammatory Traits and Diseases. Diseases (Basel, Switzerland). 2025. ↗
  23. Hadley ME, Dorr RT. Melanocortin peptide therapeutics: historical milestones, clinical studies and commercialization. Peptides. 2006. ↗
  24. Hedlund P. PT-141 Palatin. Current opinion in investigational drugs (London, England : 2000). 2004. ↗
  25. Al Shaer D, Al Musaimi O, Albericio F, de la Torre BG. 2019 FDA TIDES (Peptides and Oligonucleotides) Harvest. Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland). 2020. ↗