Founded in 2020, Vella Bioscience is a purpose-driven women’s wellness brand, existing where the pleasure gap and the women’s health research gap intersect.Â
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Dr. Harin Padma-Nathan, MD, is a urologist with a specialty in sexual medicine and clinical science. Before joining Vella, Dr. Padma-Nathan led the clinical development of both Viagra® and Cialis®. So we know a thing or two about how arousal works, both in a male body and a female body, and how to conduct scientifically accurate clinical studies. As Chief Medical Officer and co-founder, Dr. Padma-Nathan leads all of Vella's clinical research.
Vella operates a lab in a biotech incubator in the greater Boston area. It's there that two full-time PhD scientists, Dr. Michael Frid and Dr. Wenmin Yuan, are researching and innovating new solutions to address the unmet needs of female bodies every day. The lab is led by Vella's Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder Dr. Frid, an MIT-trained formulation chemist and an expert in liposomes, biotechnologies, and advanced delivery methods.
Our Scientific Advisory Board members comprise many of the foremost experts in women’s sexual health research today.
We know what science looks like in this space. And we know how to do it.
Problems with sexual arousal are often mistaken for a lack of libido or desire. This isn’t entirely true. Desire (or libido) is a psychological process. Arousal is a physiological process.
The breakthrough behind Pleasure Serum comes from a proprietary nanotechnology invented by our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Harin Padma-Nathan, a sexual medicine expert who led the clinical development of the world's top medical solution for erectile dysfunction.
Developing Pleasure Serum was a uniquely rigorous path that took over 7 years. It began with a question about liposomes—and whether or not they could properly reach smooth muscle tissue.
We commissioned this illustration for use in textbooks and doctor’s offices. Open the module to view and download it for your own use.
Female sexual response is a cycle between desire, arousal, and orgasm. Desire (or libido) is a psychological process. Arousal is a physiological process, which can have physiological barriers that contribute to difficulty or inability to reach orgasm.
When the vagina is in a state of arousal, engorgement and lubrication occur. There are barriers, like low estrogen levels and menopause, that can contribute to low arousal.
Even if you are fully in the mood, being aroused can be difficult and becomes more difficult with age. Or even if you are aroused, being more aroused may still make your orgasm easier to reach—not to mention longer and more intense.
CBD does not do many of the things that have been claimed since its legalization in 2018. But still, we wanted to understand the potential human benefits of this new-to-lab molecule, so we took time to study it.
Through expert-led scientific studies, we’ve deepened our understanding of what CBD may be able to do: relax the involuntary (smooth) muscles involved in orgasm. The vaginal and clitoral smooth muscle relaxation that can result from CBD increases blood flow (hello, arousal), making it possible (and yes, even easier) to orgasm.
While CBD is the main ingredient in our Pleasure Serum, it’s actually Liposomes that can support sexual success. Liposomes are vesicles—or small, fluid-filled sacs—formed by a thin membrane of fatty molecules, called phospholipids.
Liposomes can dissolve “fatty molecules.” CBD is a fatty molecule, meaning it is hard to get beneath the skin. Our proprietary liposomal formulation helps CBD molecules to reliably reach beneath the skin, prompting a potential positive arousal response. And the external solution is water soluble, thus conferring condom compatibility.
The CBD molecule only became widely available to scientists to study its potential therapeutic uses in 2018.
Diagram of a liposome carrying CBD molecules.
A 1,000-fold magnification of a diluted sample of Women’s Pleasure Serum, with pink backlight showing the key to efficacy, liposomes with CBD inside.
We began with a pre-clinical study conducted at the world-premier lab for sexual research. This is where we discovered the dose-dependent relationship between CBD and smooth muscle relaxation. The more CBD was administered, the more the muscles relaxed until they reached maximum possible relaxation.
Following the pre-clinical work, we conducted a vaginal plethysmography study at a third-party lab. We used a blood-flow monitoring probe on people who had applied the Pleasure Serum and the results showed increased blood flow to vaginal tissue. The increase in blood flow occurred with sexual stimuli and without.
Finally, using a questionnaire based on the gold-standard Female Sexual Function Index, Dr. Harin Padma-Nathan, our Chief Medical Officer and the former Key Principal Investigator of Viagra®, conducted a clinical study. We surveyed people aged 23 to 61 who applied our Pleasure Serum to their vulva and clitoris 15 minutes before sexual activity. Ninety percent of these participants reported increased ease, frequency, intensity, and/or satisfaction with orgasm.
When the vagina is in a state of arousal, engorgement and lubrication occur. This illustration shows vaginal smooth muscle in states of non-arousal (top) and arousal (bottom). When smooth muscle relaxes, lacunar spaces fill with blood, as depicted on the left. This is a prerequisite for orgasm. Lubrication, as seen on the right, results when increased blood pressure from smooth muscle relaxation pushes fluid through intercellular junctions.
We hold multiple patents, prosecuted nationally and internationally, that memorialize our innovations in women’s sexual health, and allow us to uphold and develop these contributions in the future.
US: 17/775,287PCT: PCT/US20/58722
US: 17/775,288PCT: PCT/US20/58719
US: 18/120,725PCT: PCT/US21/22199
US: 17/165,002PCT: PCT/US21/22199
