We all deserve the attention of science.
Founded in 2020, Vella Bioscience makes biotech-enabled products that are clinically proven to enhance and support female sexual pleasure and wellbeing.
We are scientists, women’s health advocates, and doctors—our Chief Medical Officer led the clinical development of Viagra® and Cialis®.
Our mission is to advance research and solutions that address the many overlooked aspects of female sexual health.
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Our Expertise
Vella exists where the orgasm gap and the women’s health research gap intersect—a landscape with an unknown perimeter.
It’s here where we plumb both the complexities and the unknowns of female sexual wellbeing.
Our team of scientists and Scientific Advisory Board members comprise some of the foremost experts in women’s sexual health today. And at our Boston-area lab, our team of scientists is working every day on research and new consumer product developments.
What is the female sexual response cycle?
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.
How does Pleasure Serum work?
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.
How was Pleasure Serum developed?
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.
Download the first-ever illustration of female sexual arousal.
We commissioned this illustration for use in textbooks and doctor’s offices. Open the module to view and download it for your own use.
What is the female sexual response cycle?
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.
When arousal occurs lacunar spaces fill with blood, causing clitoral engorgement.
Additionally, smooth muscle relaxes, causing increased lubrication.
How does Pleasure Serum work?
CBD
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.
Liposomes
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.
How was Pleasure Serum developed?
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.
Download the first-ever illustration of female sexual arousal.
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.
Our Patents
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: 17/775,288
PCT: PCT/US20/58719
US: 18/120,725
PCT: PCT/US21/22199
US: 17/165,002
PCT: PCT/US21/22199
A note from our CEO
The headquarters of Vella Bioscience is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Why start a science-based women’s sexual health brand in one of the least likely places for this kind of advancement?
Well, it’s where I live and where I’m from, so let me first acknowledge the convenience factor before my virtue signaling. Because the midwest is, in my mind, a challenging, radical, beautiful, and important starting place for the change we’re trying to catalyze: equal access to pleasure, joy, and health.
But please don’t misread our agenda for change as politically driven—that would be too narrow minded. It’s driven by something simpler and grander: curiosity. The thing that binds both sensuality and science is curiosity. Tulsa is just another place on the planet occupied by people, curious and craving the profound human experience of intimate connection.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t also recognize here my esteemed coastal-dwelling colleagues on Vella’s founding team, whose curiosity guides our inquiry:

- Dr. Harin Padma-Nathan. A renowned sexual medicine specialist and urologist who led the clinical development of Viagra® and Cialis®, and has published in the New England Journal of Medicine on erectile dysfunction
- Dr. Michael Frid. An MIT-trained formulation chemist and our co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, who leads our research lab in Boston, and oversees Dr. Wenmin Yuan, an expert in liposomal science.
Thank you for learning more about what we do and who we are. Now go enjoy your body…perhaps with one of our products? 


To Feeling It All,
Carolyn Wheeler
P.S. I am indulging in my own Substack called “This Feels Important,” where I write about my experience in today’s female sexual wellness industry. Let’s connect there?