Creation of Promescent

When Dr. Gilbert began working on Promescent, there were any number of other solutions out there: from sexual behavior therapy or exercises to strengthen the muscles that help control ejaculation; to pills originally designed as anti-depressants that help delay ejaculation; to lidocaine-based sprays or creams that would numb the penis, reducing sensitivity.

But many men told Dr. Gilbert the solutions did not work for them. Either the therapy or exercises were ineffective, or the pills had too many side effects or the lidocaine-based sprays transferred to their partners, numbing them both.

He struck on an idea for a lidocaine spray that more easily penetrated the skin, more directly and effectively numbing the penis, but reducing the risk that it would transfer to a partner.

Working with a chemist, Dr. Gilbert came up with a small change to the typical lidocaine spray that he believed would make a big difference: changing the lidocaine from a crystallized form to an oil. That allowed it to penetrate skin more quickly and directly, without moving transferring.

In a field of pornographic, comical or just plain silly names for such sprays — from “Mandelay,” to “Stallion,” “Not Yet,” and others — Dr. Gilbert chose “Promescent.” It combines “prolonged” with “tumescence,” which is a scientific term for the state of being swollen.

He began production, and asked some friends to use it, including Mr. Abraham, who had started as Dr. Gilbert’s patient and become a close friend.

Mr. Abraham, who made millions working in the semiconductor field, became an investor after trying the spray himself. He also offered advice and helped the company raise money, including from his good friend, Mr. Kaminski, who had moved back to the Pittsburgh area from California.

“Pittsburgh is one of the first places it got test marketed,” Mr. Kaminski said.

When sales did not take off, Dr. Gilbert asked Mr. Abraham to take over the small company in 2012 because “he trusted Jeff and respected his work as an entrepreneur,” Ms. Gilbert said.

Looking to sell

Sales in 2011 were just $18,000, Mr. Abraham said. But he set a big goal when he took over.

“I told Ron, ‘The goal is to get this thing medically viable, get sales to $2 million to $4 million a year, and be able to sell it to a large company to really get it to people,’ ” Mr. Abraham said. “If we do, we’d get a massive offer.”

They made sure Promescent was compliant with FDA requirements for overthe-counter analgesics, initiated a scientific study to prove it was effective and marketed it through urologists to give it credibility.

Sales jumped to $1.4 million in 2013, and a company, Auxilium, made an offer that Absorption said could have been worth as much as $150 million over a decade if it went through.

But the morning after Mr. Abraham outlined the proposal to Dr. Gilbert in a meeting on Jan. 27, 2013, Dr. Gilbert was shot nine times and killed, allegedly by a veteran, Stanwood Fred Elkus in Newport Beach.

Mr. Elkus, now 79, said he believed Dr. Gilbert was the surgeon who botched his prostate surgery decades earlier. Investigators believe it was a case of mistaken identity and that Dr. Gilbert was not his surgeon. Mr. Elkus immediately claimed he was insane and has not yet gone to trial while being held in jail for murder.

Mr. Abraham said Dr. Gilbert’s death made him even more determined to sell Promescent to the right company to help Dr. Gilbert’s family.

The first deal fell through later in 2013. But Stephen De Pretre, then a consultant working out of Beijing for RB’s Chinese subsidiary, seized upon Absorption as a possible acquisition for RB.

“I was searching for delay sprays,” said Mr. De Pretre, who now is Absorption’s vice president in charge of international sales. “There are hundreds of them. But if you look at them, the mechanism of action is basically all the same. Promescent was the only one that had something unique” with its oil formula.

It took some convincing — RB had previously had its own delay spray under its Durex brand but it sold poorly and was discontinued a couple years earlier — but RB decided to explore the idea.

“I thought it was a perfect fit for us,” Mr. Abraham said. “This company [RB] owned Durex condoms and K-Y Lube. It could take us to the next level.”

After some persuading by Mr. De Pretre, RB began due diligence with the stated intent to buy the rights to Promescent.

RB was so sure it was going to buy it, and quickly, that employees gave the negotiations the tongue-andcheek name, “Project Speedy.”

A tough opponent

Over the next two years, RB and Absorption had offand-on negotiations that increasingly worried Mr. Abraham.

“I thought they might be trying to do a knock-off on our product,” he said.

In 2016, Absorption began hearing repeated rumors that RB was planning its own delay spray, claims RB officials continually denied.

But last fall, RB did what Mr. Abraham feared and announced a massive, national ad campaign for its new delay spray product, K-Y Duration.

Mr. De Pretre, who by