Male Birth Control Trials To Commence Soon
The non-hormonal pill is found effective in mice, with no side effects.
Human trials for male contraception pills are expected to begin after successful lab results on mice.
The male contraceptive pill has been found to be 99% effective at preventing pregnancy in mice, with no apparent side effects. The studies were conducted by University of Minnesota graduate student Md Abdullah al Noman and a team of researchers, who together, closely administered the treatment — a daily dose of a molecule called YCT529 — on mice over the course of four weeks, which led them to discover that sperm count plummeted. Additionally, the pill contains no hormones. Once the treatment stopped, the mice were back to reproducing normally.
“Safety is very important for birth control pills because people are not taking it for a disease, so they are less tolerant of side effects,” Norman said, as reported by NewScientist.
As a result, Norman and his colleagues licensed the pill to YourChoice Therapeutics, a private company that focuses on “developing highly-effective, reversible contraceptives with no side effects for men and women.”
If all continues to run smoothly with the current plan, clinical human trials in men can be expected to start later this year.
