Big Drug Companies Threaten Natural Hormone Therapy

Big drug companies want the entire hormone therapy market to themselves. If they’re successful, the price of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy could go through the roof. And you won’t be able to get the therapy in the right form, either. In 2014, TherapeuticsMD, a drug company specializing in women’s healthcare, was granted two new patents for the company’s combination bioidentical-estradiol-and-progesterone drug. The patents are for the particular “recipe” of bioidentical hormones (presumably a particular ratio of estradiol to progesterone, combined with a proprietary solubilizing agent), and for the “method”—that is, the claim that this formulation is a method of treating menopause symptoms in women. The company is also in the midst of conducting a Phase III clinical trial on this drug, meaning that it could be very close to coming to market. Keep in mind that this is occurring against the backdrop of the FDA’s war on natural medicine.