Apparently a large number of individual investors believe in the future of a drug to treat female sexual dysfunction.

Sprout Pharmaceuticals has positioned its drug as the first female equivalent to Viagra. And the privately held firm has turned to scores of investors for financial help in driving the drug toward FDA approval.

In an SEC filing, Sprout disclosed that it has raised $4.3 million from 69 individual investors.

And they are not just from North Carolina. Sprout is soliciting backers across 17 states, according to the filing.

Sprout hopes to raise $15 million in a funding drive that launched on June 30. The latest SEC filing reports progress as of July 11. Sprout raised $10 million in 2013.

The latest funding is described as equity, not debt, and the company says the money will be spent for “working capital,” some of which may go to pay corporate salaries.

Sprout is working with the FDA in an attempt to win approval for the drug known as flibanserin.

Earlier this year, Sprout received a letter from the FDA that spelled out the next steps Sprout must take to win approval,  and the company said it sees a path to winning that OK.

“We are encouraged by the FDA’s response and view it as a significant step toward the approval of flibanserin,” said Cindy Whitehead, president and chief operating officer of Sprout, in a statement.

“With data in over 11,000 patients to date, we are confident that further supporting the predictable risk/benefit profile of flibanserin will result in women having the first ever treatment for the most common form of female sexual dysfunction,” she added.

“We are committed to working closely with the Agency to finally provide premenopausal women affected by HSDD with a medical treatment option.”

HSDD stands for Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder.

If flibanserin gets the FDA’s OK, Sprout’s drug would become the first “female Viagra” drug approved for the market. Other companies that have tried to develop such products have either failed to win approval or have even failed to advance beyond clinical trials.

Boehringer Ingelheim, the German company that originally developed the compound, submitted a flibanserin drug application to the FDA in 2010. The agency declined to approve the drug, raising questions about its efficacy and safety. Sprout licensed the compound from Boehringer Ingelheim in 2011. The “female Viagra” name is an unofficial one associated with the the drug the first time it was going through the development and review process but it has no association with Pfizer’s Viagra, nor it work by the same mechanism of action.

Flibanserin was developed to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder in pre-menopausal women. HSDD is a condition characterized by diminished sexual desire. Sprout recently published positive phase III clinical trial results in the Journal of Sexual Medicine showing that flibanserin performed better than a placebo. The most frequently reported adverse events were drowsiness, dizziness and nausea.

The daily pill is designed to increase libido in women by acting on brain chemicals linked to mood and appetite.

Editor’s note: Capitol Broadcasting is an investor in Sprout Pharmaceuticals.