Pelletier and Evofem have billed Phexxi as a solution for a market of 23 million who won’t or can’t use hormonal birth control.
To use Phexxi, a woman applies the cream inside her vagina either right before intercourse or in the hour before sex. To test its efficacy, nearly 1,400 women between the ages of 18 and 35 used Phexxi over the course of seven menstrual cycles. Only about 14 percent became pregnant by the study’s end. Phexxi can be used alongside other forms of birth control, including condoms and hormonal contraceptives.
However, Pelletier said the COVID-19 pandemic stifled participation in a clinical trial for Phexxi’s usage to prevent chlamydia and gonorrhea that produced incomplete results last year. Evofem’s stock dropped and was delisted from the Nasdaq in October. The company has been trying to recover and recoup money since then.. The goal was to raise funds and get back on the national stock exchange by leveraging Evofem’s FDA-approved drug as an asset.
“So right now we are at a place where money’s tight, but we are not insolvent,” Pelletier said. “We are not going out of business. We are not filing for bankruptcy. We are in a rebuild, redo and recommit kind of place ... So, we’re alive — we are not on life support.” Pelletier — in a previous interview with the U-T — could not disclose how much cash Evofem had, but said “cash flow is very, very tight.” The company’s